"What is it?" asked Bunny. "A cocoanut?" Once a ship laden with cocoanuts had been wrecked and the shore strewn with the nuts.
"Is it a whale?" asked Harry.
"It's a big box," answered Sue, pointing. "Look, it's floating out there, and I guess it's coming to shore right here."
The others looked toward the object at which Sue pointed and saw, bobbing up and down in the waves, what appeared to be a large chest. The wind and tide were fast bringing it up to where they stood on the beach.
CHAPTER XXI
MR. RAVENWOOD
Bunny Brown and his sister Sue stood with Harry Slater and his mother on the beach and watched the wind and the tide bringing nearer and nearer to shore the floating box. As it came into plainer view, the children could see that it was no ordinary refuse of the sea, like a broken orange or lemon box, some of which floated ashore at Bellemere.
"That's a nice, good box," said Bunny, as he watched it bobbing up and down on the waves. "It's a box just like Mr. Foswick, the carpenter, makes."
"And it isn't broken, either," added Sue. Usually the boxes she and her brother found on the beach were empty and smashed.