“You brute!” gasped Eleanor. “Don’t you dare to touch me!”
“Will you go of your own accord, then?”
“I suppose I must,” gasped Eleanor tearfully. “But you shall pay for this, you scoundrel! You’re tricking me in some fashion, but you can’t deceive me, and you can’t keep the truth quiet forever.”
Then there was the sound of retreating footsteps, and a few minutes later Bessie and Zara were released by Jeff, who was grinning as if it had been a great joke.
“Well, sis, we’re off now!” he said. “Come on! I don’t want to be hard on you. Come out here in the passageway, and you can have a look at the shore as we go off.”
He led them to the stern, and to the little cabin, in which was a porthole. Looking out, Bessie saw the beach indistinctly. The ruined tents were there, and several of the girls, in bathing suits. And, swimming slowly to the shore she saw a girl in a red cap, which, as she knew, belonged to Dolly. How she longed to be able to call to her! But Jeff was at her side, and she knew that the attempt would be useless, since he was watching her as if he had been a cat and she a mouse.
A bell clanged somewhere below them, and the next moment there was a rumbling sound as the machinery was started. At the same moment there came the grinding of the anchor chains as they were raised. But the yacht did not move! Even after the anchor was up there was no movement except the throbbing of the whole vessel as the engines raced in the hold! Jeff’s face grew black, and he turned toward the passage with a scowl.
“What’s wrong here?” he shouted, going to the door. At the same moment, seizing her brief chance, Bessie gave a wild scream, and saw, to her delight, that those on shore had heard it. In a moment she was pulled roughly from the porthole, and Jeff, his face savage and all the kindness gone out of it, scowled down at her.
“Keep quiet, you little vixen!” he shouted. “Here, come with me!”
At the foot of some steps that led up to the deck he left the two girls in the care of Larry, one of the two men she had seen the night before.