“Oh, I think Mrs. Curtis and Tom will be along soon,” she rejoined. “I felt dreadfully when we received the telegram this morning. But now I hope Mrs. Curtis’s brother will get well in a hurry. Perhaps they will be here almost as soon as this Philip. I’ll wager you a pound of chocolates, Phil, that this goody-goody young man can’t swim or row, or do anything like an ordinary person. He will just think every single thing we do is perfectly dreadful, and will frighten Tania to death with his preaching. I know he thinks her fairy stories are lies. He told Mrs. Curtis that Tania never spoke the truth.” Madge lowered her voice. “I am sure we have never caught her in a lie. I suppose this Philip will think my exaggerations are as bad as Tania’s fairy stories. I hate too literal people.”
“Dear me, whom are you and Phil discussing, Madge?” inquired Lillian, leaning over from her seat in the stern with Tania, to try to catch her friends’ low-voiced conversation. “If it is that Philip Holt, you need not think that he will trouble us very much when he comes to Cape May. He is just the kind of person who will trot after all the rich people he meets, and waste very little energy on those who have neither money nor social position.”
Lillian was looking at Madge and Phil as she talked. For the moment she forgot to keep a sharp watch about on the water. But a moment since there had been no other boats in sight near them. Eleanor was resting in the prow with her eyes closed. The sun blazed hotly in her face, she could only see a bright light dancing before her eyes.
As Lillian leaned back in her seat in the stern her face took on an expression of sudden alarm. At the same moment the four girls heard the distinct chug of a motor engine. Cutting down upon them was a pleasure yacht run by a gasoline motor. The prow of the yacht was head-on with the “Water Witch” and running at full speed. The boat had blown no whistle, so the girls had not seen its approach.
“Look ahead!” shouted Lillian.
The young man who was steering the yacht paid no heed to her warning. He kept straight ahead, although he distinctly saw the rowboat and its passengers.
Madge and Phyllis had no time to call out or to protest. They realized, almost instantly, that the motor launch meant to make no effort to slow down but to put the full responsibility of getting out of danger on the rowers.
The girls had no particular desire to be thrown into the water, nor to have their boat cut in two, so they pulled for dear life, with white faces and straining throats and arms.
They just missed making their escape by a hair’s breadth. The young man running the yacht must have believed that the skiff would get safely by or else when he found out his mistake it was too late for him to slow down. The prow of his yacht ran with full force into the frail side of the “Water Witch” near her stern.
The little skiff whirled in the water almost in a semi-circle. By a miracle it escaped being completely run down by the launch. Yet a second later, before any one of the girls could stir, the water rushed into the hole in its side and it sank. Madge and Phyllis had had their oars wrenched from their hands. Then they found themselves struggling in the water.