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"Yes, I'm all right," was the answer of the sailor himself. "I feel cooler now."
At this the older people laughed.
He had fallen in with the clothes on, in which he had been sleeping, but as soon as he struck the water he swam up, made his way to the side of the ship, grabbed a rope that was hanging over the side, and pulled himself to the deck.
"My! what a fright I had!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I thought one of the children had rolled into the ocean!"
"That couldn't happen," said Captain Crane. "There is a strong railing all about the deck."
"Well, it's cooler now," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I think I'll take the twins and go to our regular beds."
She did this and was glad of it, for a little later a thunderstorm broke, and it began to rain, driving every one below. The rest of the night the storm kept up, and though the thunder was loud and the lightning very bright, the rain did one good service -- it made the next day cooler.
"Well, shall we go ashore again?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, when breakfast had been eaten aboard the Swallow.
"Oh, yes!" cried the twins. "We want to go swimming again!"
"And I'm going to watch out for 'mud turkles,'" said Flossie, as she called them.
Once more they went to the beach of Palm Island, and they had dinner on the shady shore. In the afternoon, leaving the engineer and his helpers on board to work away at the motor, the whole party of travelers, Captain Crane, Cousin Jasper and all, started on a walk to the other side of the island. This took them out of...
They found many pretty things at which to look -- flowers, a spring of sweet water where they got a drink, little caves and dells, and a place where hundreds of birds made their nests on a rocky cliff. The birds wheeled and soared about, making loud noises as they saw the Bobbsey twins and the others near their nests.
It was along in the afternoon when they went back to the beach where they had eaten, and where they were to have supper. Bert, who had run on ahead around a curve in the woodland path, came to a stop on the beach.
"Why -- why!" he cried. "She's gone! The Swallow is gone!" and he pointed to the little bay.
The motor boat was no longer at anchor there!
Chapter XIX
Away Again
"What's that you say?" asked Captain Crane. "The Swallow gone?"
"She isn't there," Bert answered. "But maybe that isn't the bay where she was anchored. Maybe we're in the wrong place."
"No, this is the place all right," said Cousin Jasper. "But our boat is gone!"
There was no doubt of it. The little bay that had held the fine, big motor boat was indeed empty. The small boat was drawn up on the sand, but that was all.
"Where can it have gone?" asked Mr. Bobbsey. "Did you know the men we left on it were going away, Captain Crane?"
"No, indeed, I did not! I can't believe that Mr. Chase and the others have gone, and yet the boat isn't here."
Captain Crane was worried. So were Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey and Cousin Jasper. Even Flossie and Freddie, young as they were, could tell that.
"Maybe a big mud turkle came and pulled the ship away," said Flossie.
"Or a whale," added Freddie. Any big fish or swimming animal, the little twins thought, might do such a thing as that.
"No, nothing like that happened," said Captain Crane. "And yet the Swallow is gone. The men could not have thought a storm was coming up, and gone out to sea to be safe. There is no sign of a storm, and they never would have gone away, unless something happened, without blowing a whistle to tell us."
"Maybe," said Bert, "they got word from Jack, on the other island, to come and get him right away, and they couldn't wait for us."
Captain Crane shook his head.
"That couldn't happen," he said, "unless another boat brought word from poor Jack. And if there had been another boat we'd have seen her."
"Unless both boats went away together," suggested Mr. Bobbsey.
"No, I think nothing like that happened," said the captain.
"But what can we do?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "Shall we have to stay on this island until the Swallow comes back?"
"She may not be gone very long," Mr. Bobbsey said.
"We can camp out here until she does come back," observed Nan. "We have lots left to eat."
"There won't be much after supper," Bert said. "But we can catch some turtles, or find some more eggs, and get fish, and live that way."
"I'll catch a fish," promised Freddie.
"I don't understand this," said Captain Crane, with another shake of his head. "I must go out and have a look around."
"How are you going?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
"In the small boat. I'll row out into the bay for a little way," said the seaman. "It may be that the Swallow is around some point of the island, just out of sight. I'll have a look before we get ready to camp here all night."
"I'll come with you," offered Cousin Jasper.
"All right, and we'll leave Mr. Bobbsey here with his family," the captain said. "Don't be afraid," he added to the children and Mrs. Bobbsey. "Even if the worst has happened, and the Swallow, by some mistake, has gone away without us, we can stay here for a while. And many ships pass this island, so we shall be taken ...
"We can be like Robinson Crusoe, really," Bert said.
"That isn't as much fun as it seems when you're reading the book," put in his mother. "But we will make the best of it."
"I think it'd be fun," murmured Freddie.
Captain Crane and Cousin Jasper got in the small boat and rowed out into the bay. Anxiously the others watched them, hoping they would soon come back with word that the Swallow had been blown just around "the corner," as Nan said, meaning around a sort of rocky point of the island, beyond which they could not look.
"I do hope we shall not have to camp out here all night," said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a little shiver, as she looked around.
"Are you afraid of the mud turkles?" asked Flossie.