“Several things happened,” explained Captain Ward. “In the first place, her steering gear was damaged in the hurricane and also when we ran on the sand-bar, but we didn’t know that. Everything seemed to be all right when you folks went ashore, and then we waited until high tide and started to pull the ship off the bar.
“We managed that part all right and were backing away when we found the steering gear wouldn’t work after we had turned the ship about to head away from the island. But even that would have been all right had it not been that while I was giving orders something fell from up above and hit me and my first mate on our heads. We were knocked unconscious and remained so for a long time.
“This made so much excitement on the ship, together with the breaking of the rudder, that no one thought anything about you folks left on the island. In fact, very few of those on board knew you had gone off for a little picnic, though I knew and so did my mate. But we were both unconscious.
“Well, while I was lying in this state in my berth, the second mate, knowing nothing about you folks left here, kept the ship steaming away. She could move straight ahead, but could not turn about. And the second mate wanted to get as far away as possible from the dangerous sand-bar. So he went for many miles before dropping anchor.
“And there we were, disabled, many miles away from the island, and here you were, marooned. I tell you I felt mighty sorry about it when I came to and asked about you,” said Captain Ward. “And when I found you hadn’t come back on board and no one had gone after you, I was nearly wild with worry.
“I wanted to put back and take you off at once. But, to add to our troubles, when we got the steering gear fixed the engines got out of order and we couldn’t move at all.
“Of course the engineers worked as hard as they could to make repairs, and it was only a little while ago that we could turn around and come back to get you. All the while the machinery was being fixed I had a man on a lookout for some other ship to send to rescue you, but we saw none. Our wireless was out of order, so we couldn’t radio about you to any other ship. But as soon as we got things fixed up we came back in a hurry, and here we are!”
“We’re glad to see you,” laughed Mr. Brown. “Really, we haven’t been so badly off. We have had a good shelter and plenty to eat.”
“But we were all excited about the wild man,” said Bunny.
“And we caught him—Bunny and I!” put in Sue.