“Why, Jessie Norwood! what is the matter with it?” whispered Nell, anxiously.
“The mean old thing won’t open! It’s a spring lock. How did it get locked this way, do you suppose?”
“You slammed it when you came in, Jess,” Nell said. “But I had no idea that it could be locked that way. Especially from the outside. Oh, dear! Shall I shout for one of the boys? Shall I?”
“Don’t!” gasped Jessie, still struggling with the door-knob. “Don’t you know if one of them comes here and sees this smoke, everybody will know it?”
“They’ll have to know it pretty soon,” said Nell. “The smoke is coming in all the time, Jess.”
Jessie could see that well enough. She shrank from creating a panic aboard the yacht, realizing fully what a terrible thing a fire at sea can be. If this hovering fog of smoke meant nothing serious, their outcry for help at the stateroom window would create trouble—maybe serious trouble. Jessie had the right idea, if she could but carry it out—to tell the sailing master of the yacht, and only him.
The brass knob seemed as firmly fixed in place as though it had never been moved since it came from the shop. Jessie, at last, came away from it. She peered out of the small window. If she could only catch the skipper’s eye!
But she could not. At that moment there was not a soul in sight from the window. She saw sea and sky, and that was all.
“Oh dear, Jess!” murmured Nell Stanley, at last giving way to fear. “What shall we do? We’ll be burned up in here!”
“Don’t talk so, Nell!” commanded Jessie. “Do you want to scare me to death?”