“Captain Ward says we may go ashore if we like. He will have a boat lowered for us and give us two sailors to row us to the shore of the island. There is a little sheltered bay where we can land without going through the surf. It will be several hours before the tide is high enough to try to get the Beacon off the sand-bar, and while we are waiting we can go on the island.”
“Are any other passengers going ashore?” Mrs. Brown wanted to know.
“I think we are the only ones,” her husband said. “The children will like it.”
“Yes, they’ll enjoy it,” said their mother.
When the boat was lowered and Bunny and Sue were helped into it, they shouted with delight at the prospect of landing on the island where the cocoanut trees grew.
“Hold fast!” cried one of the sailors, as he and his mate rowed the boat away from the ship and toward the island.
CHAPTER XVI
LEFT BEHIND
Very calm was the sea over which Bunny and Sue were being rowed toward the cocoanut island, as the children called it. The waves were not at all high and the ocean was more like Sandport Bay, on which Bunker Blue often took the Brown children for a row.
“It hardly seems like the ocean at all,” said Mrs. Brown.
“True,” agreed her husband. “We could almost land on the island through the open surf.”