"It looks so," admitted Cora.
"Oh, we mustn't think of giving up!" cried Bess. "I know my father. He just wouldn't give in to those horrid mutineers, and he wouldn't throw in his fortunes with them, either. I can't explain it, but, somehow I feel more hopeful than at any time yet, that they are all right—Papa and Mamma, and your mother, too, Cora."
"I am glad you think so, dear. I haven't given up either. But let's get away from here, Jack."
"That's what I say!" murmured Belle, with a little nervous shiver.
"This place gives me such a creepy feeling."
"You might well say so, Miss," put in Ben. "That is, if you had to stay here all along, as I did, with nothing but them parrot birds screeching at you all day long. It was awful!"
There was no use in staying longer on Lonely Island, and Ben Wrensch was only too glad to be taken from it. At first the motor girls talked of taking him with them, on the remainder of the cruise, but, as Jack pointed out, there was no need of this.
He could give no further information as to the location of the Ramona, providing the steamer still was afloat. And he would only be an added, and comparatively useless, passenger. He was not exactly the sort of personage one would desire in the rather cramped quarters of the Tartar, though he was kind and obliging. He would be better off ashore, for the time being, where he could get medical treatment.
So the big motor boat swept out of the blue lagoon, and headed for St. Kitts, for it was planned to leave Ben, and once more take up the search.
They had not been under way more than an hour, however, before Jack, who was steering, uttered a cry.
"There's a boat cording toward us!" he said. "She seems to be a
small launch."