CHAPTER XXII—THE ODYSSEY OF TESS AND DOT
Children, after all, are usually fearless when they face material things. Danger does not often frighten them if there is no mystery or weirdness connected with it.
The fact that they were sailing upon an unmanageable boat, upon an unknown sea, and were quite helpless, did not disturb the slumbers of Tess and Dot Kenway. As Tess had thought, the motor-boat might bump into something; but staying awake on their part would not ward off that disaster.
The Isobel blundered along as the night fell, and the children went to sleep supperless. Dot did not even complain about this lack of a meal. There was nobody to complain to, for she knew Tess could not aid her.
The motor-boat drew closer in to the shore of the first island. The tide and current sucked the hull of the helpless craft nearer and nearer. As it chanced, there was a point covered with palm trees around which the Isobel drifted. She was then completely hidden from any part, even the highest part, of Palm Island.
When the sun arose the next morning, as far as the party back at the larger island knew, the motor-boat might have been sunk beneath the surface of the sea.
But that was not what had happened. The boat grounded, swung around with the tide, and when the sun got well above the sea its rays shone straight into the open cabin door and into Dot Kenway’s eyes.
“O-oo! Tess!” she squealed. “I guess we landed and didn’t know it. And the boat is pitching over. O-oo!”
It was a fact that the deck of the Isobel—more properly the floor of her cabin—lay at a steep angle. The boat was quite snugly run upon the sands. The tide had withdrawn and left her there.
The two wondering little girls climbed out of their berths and crept to the door and so out into the cockpit. They looked wonderingly over the rail to the shore.