Paul yelled again, even more loudly. “I said, there’s a boat coming up the lake!”
The four children looked at one another in dismay and surprise. “Surely Mr. Diaz can’t have found out where we are,” said Mike. “Though he’s quite clever enough to guess, if he knows we are the children who ran away to a secret island last year!”
“What shall we do, Jack?” asked Nora.
“We haven’t time to do anything much,” said Jack anxiously. “I think it wouldn’t be safe to go and hide on the island - those men will search it thoroughly, caves and all. We’d better get Paul down here, and row off to the mainland in the boat. We could hide in the trees there for a bit.”
“Good idea, Jack,” said Mike. He stood up in the boat and yelled to Paul, who was anxiously waiting for his orders.
“Come on down here, Paul. We’ll go off in the boat. Hurry up!”
Paul waved his hand and disappeared. When he appeared at the edge of the water, the others saw that he was carrying something. He had a loaf of bread, a packet of biscuits, and two tins of fruit!
“I say! You’ve got brains to think of those!” said Jack, pleased. “Good for you, Paul!”
Paul went red with pleasure. He thought the four children were wonderful, and he was very proud to be praised by Captain Jack!
“I just had time to push all our things into a bush,” said Paul. “And I grabbed these to bring, because I guessed we might have to stop away for some hours.”