"Ay! ay! an' they'll be mighty glad of a chance to leave!"
This question surprised the boys almost to the verge of bewilderment. It was positive the red-nosed man would not ask for them so solicitously; and yet, who else in that lonely portion of the ocean knew anything regarding their mishaps?
Harry and Walter clasped hands as if in a daze, both so excited as to be unable to speak until a second voice from out the darkness shouted:
"Are you there, Harry?"
"It's father! It's father!" Harry screamed, as he ran toward the water; and there, with Walter at his side, he stood straining his eyes in the vain effort to see the boat, but in his joyful astonishment giving no heed to the apparently strange fact that those whom he loved had known so well where to look for the Bonita's involuntary crew.
It was not possible for the little craft to land with safety on the beach, where the surf was breaking with sufficient force to overturn if not stave her to pieces, and he who had first hailed now cried:
"Is there a landing-place near by?"
"You're at the mouth of a cove in which there's water enough to float a ship," Joe replied. "I'll walk along the beach to where there is no surf."
By shouting continually he succeeded in piloting the boat behind the point where a landing could be effected, and a few moments later both Harry and Walter were clasped in Mr. Vandyne's arms.
For some moments no word was spoken, and then the boys poured forth a flood of questions regarding the loved ones from whom they had been so long separated.