Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island Part 22

The girls were sober enough now as they looked at each other.

"But what makes you think we're going to have one, Paul?" asked Laura humbly.

"Because the air is so still and muggy," Paul answered, then added with a wave of his hand out over the water: "Look--do you see that?"

"That" was a faint, misty cloudlike vapor hanging so low that it seemed almost to touch the water. And suddenly the girls were conscious that their hair was wet and also their hands and their clothes.

"Goodness, we must be in it now!" said Vi looking wonderingly down at her damp skirt. "Only it's so light you can't see it."

"I'm afraid it won't be light very long," said Paul grimly, as he swung _The Sh.e.l.ling_ around and headed back the way they had come.

"What are you going to do?" asked Laura, still more humbly, for she now was beginning to think that she was to blame for the fix they were in--if indeed it were a fix.

"I'm going to get back to land as soon as I can," Paul answered her.

"Before this fog closes down on us."

"What would happen, Paul?" asked Billie softly. "I mean if it should close down on us."

"We'd be lost," said Paul shortly, for by this time he was more than anxious. He was worried.

"Lost!" they repeated, and looked at each other wide-eyed.

"Well, you needn't look as if that was the end of the world," said Teddy, trying to speak lightly. "All we would have to do would be to keep on drifting around till the fog lifted. It's simple."

"Yes, it's simple all right," said Chet gloomily. "If we don't run into anything."

"Run into anything!" gasped Connie, while the other girls just stared.

"Oh, Paul, is there really any danger of that?"

"Of course," said Paul impatiently, noticing that the fog was growing thicker and blacker every moment. "There's always danger of running into something when you get yourself lost in a fog. And it's the little boat that gets the worst of it," he added gloomily.

"Say, can't you try being cheerful for a change?" cried Teddy indignantly, for he had noticed how white Billie was getting and was trying his best to think of something to say that would make her laugh.

"There's no use of singing a funeral song yet, you know."

"No, and there's no use in starting a dance, either," retorted Paul, wondering how much longer he would be able to keep his course. "We're in a mighty bad fix, and no harm can be done by everybody knowing it. I can't possibly get back to the island--or the mainland either--before this fog settles down upon us."

It took a minute or two for this to sink in. There was no doubt about it.

He was telling them that in a few minutes they would be lost in this horrible fog. And that might mean--they shivered and turned dismayed faces to each other.

"I--oh, I'm awfully sorry," wailed Laura. "If I hadn't said what I did to Paul we might never have come."

"Nonsense! that had nothing to do with it," said Billie, putting a loyal arm about her chum. "We would have come just the same."

Then followed a waking nightmare for the boys and girls. In a few moments the fog settled down upon them in a thick impenetrable veil, so dense that, as Paul had said, you could almost have cut it.

It became impossible for Paul to steer, and all there was to do was to sit still and wait and hope for the best. Fog horns were sounding all about, some seeming so close that the girls fully expected to see some great shape loom up through the mist, bearing down upon them.

For a long time n.o.body spoke--they were too busy listening to the weird meanings of the fog horns and wondering how they could have escaped a collision so long. For a while Paul had kept the engine running in the hope that he might be able to keep to his course and eventually get to Lighthouse Island. But he had decided that this only made a collision more likely, and so had shut it off. And now they had been floating for what seemed hours to the miserable boys and girls.

It was Connie who finally broke the silence.

"Oh, dear," she said, apropos of nothing at all, "now I suppose we'll have to die and never solve our mystery after all." She sighed plaintively, and the girls had a wild desire to shout with laughter and cry at the same time.

"Goodness," said Laura hysterically, "if we've got to die who cares about mysteries anyway?"

The boys, who had been peering ahead into the heavy unfriendly fog, looked at the girls in surprise.

"What do you mean--mystery?" Ferd asked.

Before the girls could answer a sharp cry from Paul jerked their eyes back to him.

"Look!" he cried, one hand on the wheel and the other pointing excitedly before them to a dark something which loomed suddenly out of the mist.

"There! To starboard. We'll b.u.mp it sure!"

CHAPTER XXI

THE BOYS ARE INTERESTED

For a moment the girls were too terrified to speak. And the next moment they could not have spoken if they had wanted to, for _The Sh.e.l.ling_ collided so suddenly with whatever it was that had risen out of the mist that they had all they could do to keep from being thrown to the deck.

Then Paul gave a cry of joy and sprang wildly to the side of the boat.

"Say, how's this for luck, fellows?" he cried. "I thought it was another boat and that we were bound for Davy Jones' locker sure, and here it's the dock instead. Say, talk about luck! I'll say it's grand!"

"The dock!" the others echoed wonderingly. The sudden relief was so great that they were feeling rather dazed.

"You mean it's our dock--Lighthouse Island?" Connie asked stupidly, and Paul's answer was impatient.

"I guess it is--looks like it," he said. "But then it doesn't matter much what dock it is as long as it's _a_ dock. What do you people say to going ash.o.r.e?"

What they said was soon shown by the eagerness with which they scrambled on to the dock. And when they found that it was really Lighthouse Island dock their thankfulness was mixed with awe.

"Why, it's a miracle!" said Vi, staring wide-eyed about her.

"That's just about what it looks like," agreed Chet soberly.

"A miracle!" exclaimed Ferd derisively. "It's just that the wind and the tide happened to be going in the right way, that's all."

"Well, it's a miracle that the wind and the tide did happen to be going the right way," retorted Laura.

"Yes, and it's another miracle," said Billie softly, "that even with the wind and the tide going the right way we didn't run into something before we got here."

"I guess we did come pretty close to it," said Teddy soberly, staring out into the heavy mist that still showed no sign of lifting. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I do know that I'm mighty glad to be on the good old ground again. It beats the water, just now."