Cape San Juan was rounded, and then the prow of the powerful motor boat was turned south, to navigate the often perilous passage between Porto Rico and Vieques.
"Do you think we'll find any news at St. Croix?" asked Cora, of Jack, in a low voice, when, after the meal, they found themselves for the moment by themselves.
"Hard to say, Sis," he answered. "I'm always living in hope, you know."
"Yes, I suppose we must hope, Jack. And yet, when I think of all they may be suffering—starving, perhaps, on some uninhabited island, it—it makes me shiver," and Cora glanced apprehensively across the stretch of blue water as though she might, at any moment, sight the lonely isle that served as a refuge for her mother, and for Mr. and Mrs. Robinson.
"Don't think about it," advised the practical Jack. "There are just as many chances that the folks have been picked up, and taken to some good island, as that they're on some bad one."
By the course they had laid, it was rather more than a hundred miles from San Juan harbor to St. Croix, the Danish island, and as they were going to make a careful search, and husband their supply of gasoline as much as possible, they had set their average speed at ten miles an hour.
"That will bring us to St. Croix early this evening," said Jack, for they had started in the morning. "We'll stay there all night, for I don't much fancy motoring after dark in unknown waters."
"Neither do I," said Cora.
"And then there are the sharks!" murmured Belle.
"I won't let them get you!" said Walter, it such soothing tones as one might use to a child. "The bad sharks sha'n't get little Belle," and he pretended to slip an arm about her.