CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
RESCUED
“Oh, Mabel, they’re going on! They don’t see us,” wailed Nancy when the plane dipped low on the horizon.
Better a thousand times that they had never seen it at all than to endure this agony of disappointment. But Mabel was too intent upon her sun and mirror trick to heed Nancy’s despair. She shifted her position as the plane moved on, and continued flashing the mirror into the sky.
Suddenly Hilda cried out, “Look—they’re turning! They’ve seen us.”
Incredible as it seemed, the plane was swinging back toward them, but it was still very high as it came on.
“It may be a Jap Zero.” Hilda dropped the words like a bomb into their midst.
They had been so obsessed with the hope of rescue by their own people that their dulled minds had not counted on that possibility.
“Too late now,” said Mabel. “They evidently saw my light flashing.”
“Could any thing be worse than this?” asked Nancy.