“I wish you’d been there, too, Dolly,” said Bessie, laughing. “They were perfectly furious, and everyone on board blamed everyone else. It took them quite a while to find out what was the matter, and then even after they found out, it meant a long delay before they could clear the screw and get moving.”
“I never was so glad of anything in my life, Bessie, as when we saw the men from Bay City coming while that yacht was still here! We kept watching it all the time, of course, and we saw them send the sailor over to dive down and find out what was wrong. Then we could see him going down and coming up, time after time, and it seemed as if he would get it done in time.”
“It must have been exciting, Dolly.”
“I guess it was just as exciting for you, wasn’t it? But it would have been dreadful if, after having held them so long, it hadn’t been quite long enough.”
“Well, it was long enough, Dolly, thanks to you! I hate to think of where I would be now if you hadn’t managed it so cleverly.”
“What will they do to those men on the yacht, do you suppose?”
“I don’t know. Miss Eleanor wants to prove that it was Mr. Holmes who got them to do it, I think. But that won’t be decided until her cousin, Mr. Jamieson, the lawyer, comes. He’ll know what we’d better do, and I’m sure Miss Eleanor will leave it to him to decide.”
“I tell you one thing, Bessie. This sort of persecution of you and Zara has got to be stopped. I really do believe they’ve gone too far this time. Of course, if they had got you away, they’d have been all right, because in that other state where you two came from what they did was all right. But they got caught at it. I certainly do hope that Mr. Jamieson will be able to find some way to stop them.”
“I’m glad we’re going to stay here, aren’t you, Dolly? Do you know, I really feel that we’ll be safer here now than if we went somewhere else? They’ve tried their best to get at us here, and they couldn’t manage it. Perhaps now they’ll think that we’ll be on our guard too much, and leave us alone.”
“I hope so, Bessie. But look here, there were two girls on guard last night, and what good did it do us?”