Toward morning the girls were awakened from an uneasy sleep by a strange white light flashed suddenly in their eyes. They stumbled out of bed, dazed by the suddenness with which they had been awakened and stared out into the black night.
“What was it?” gasped Billie. “Oh my, there it is again!”
“The searchlight,” cried Connie, running over to the window, her eyes wide with horror. “Billie, that’s the signal to the life-savers. And there goes the siren,” she groaned, clapping her hands over her ears as the moan of the siren rose wailingly into the night. “It’s a wreck! Billie—oh—oh!”
“A wreck!” cried a voice behind them, and they turned to see Laura in the doorway with Vi peering fearfully over her shoulder. “Oh, girls, I was just dreaming——”
“Never mind what you were dreaming,” cried Billie, beginning to pull on her clothes with trembling hands. “If it is a wreck, girls, we may be able to do something to help. Oh, where is my other stocking? Did any one see it? Never mind, here it is. Oh, hurry, girls; please, hurry.”
Twice more while they were dressing the searchlight flashed round upon the island, filling their rooms with that weird white light, and the siren wailed incessantly its wild plea for help.
The girls were just pulling on their waterproof coats when Connie’s mother, white and trembling, appeared in the doorway and stared with amazement at sight of them.
“I heard you talking, girls,” she said, “and knew you were awake. I hoped you would sleep through it.”
“Sleep through that?” asked Connie, as the siren rose to a shriek and then died off into a despairing moan. “Oh, Mother——”
“But what are you going to do, kiddies?” asked Mrs. Danvers, taking a step toward them. “The life-savers will be coming soon—perhaps they are at work now—and they will do all that can be done. Why are you putting on your coats?”