Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid Part 16

"Madge Morton, you are putting on airs. Going out in the sun, indeed!"

Phil sniffed disdainfully. "When did the sun ever hurt you? You just love to have people spoil you. You know there is nothing in the world the matter with you now. But please don't come, if you do not wish to.

Nellie and Lillian and I are going now."

Phyllis walked quietly away, with her head in the air. Madge was really too provoking.

Madge closed her book with a bang and rushed after her friend. "Of course I wish to go with you, Phil. I am interested in your pretty girl. I had reached the most exciting part of my story when you asked me, and---- Now, you will hurt my feelings dreadfully if you don't let me go along with you! Just think, Phyllis Alden. You said I was spoiled, and that I liked to pretend I was sick, and I didn't get one bit angry. Don't you truly think my temper is improving?"

Phyllis laughed. "Oh, come on, if you like. Do you think Miss Jenny Ann would mind my taking the poor girl a basket of nice things? I mean things that any girl would like. My friend isn't in the least like a beggar."

"Of course, Miss Jones will let you do anything you like, Phil,"

replied Madge. "I am the only person she does not approve of." Madge felt angry because her chaperon had intimated that Madge was hurting Eleanor's feelings by talking so much of her Mrs. Curtis and the beautiful time she had spent with her. And Madge, though she needed criticism even more than most other girls, was just as little pleased at receiving it.

The girls rowed over to the island in a short time. It was a lovely day, and not too warm on the water.

"I wonder, Phil, if there is a chance of our coming across the thief who attacked you on the houseboat? He may he in hiding on this island," said Madge as the four girls pulled their skiff up on the beach. "From your description I feel almost certain that he is the same boy who went off with our sailboat. I'd like to come across him again."

"Well, I wouldn't," declared Lillian. "I am not so bloodthirsty as you girls are."

The girls met no one along the beach, except a few children. Phil led them straight to the tent, where she had talked with the afflicted girl. "Of course, there isn't much of a chance that we shall find Mollie in the tent," explained Phil, "but I thought I would look here first."

"Do you know the girl's name, Phil?" queried Eleanor.

Phyllis shook her head. "Not her real name. I only call her Mollie because her dreadful old father called her 'Moll,' and 'Moll' is an ugly name."

The tent was more forlorn and dilapidated than ever. It was empty.

There was not a sign of life anywhere about, except for a few faded wild flowers cast carelessly in the corner of the tent.

Madge picked them up. "These flowers make me think of poor 'Ophelia'

in the play of 'Hamlet.' Ophelia went mad, you know, and wandered about with wild flowers in her hair."

"Mollie isn't the least bit crazy, Madge. You will understand that as soon as you see her," protested Phil. "It is only that she is like a child, and does not remember things. Would you girls mind going around to the other side of the island? Mollie said their shanty boat was over there. I do so want to find her."

Lillian hesitated. "I don't think we ought to go among those rough fishermen again," she protested. "We are sure to see some rude sailors over there who might speak to us."

"Oh, don't worry, Lillian," rea.s.sured Madge. "I am sure no one would dare say anything to us."

Madge was now deeply interested in the discovery of Phil's friend and longing for any kind of adventure. She had fully made up her mind to see Mollie if it were possible.

It was more than a mile walk around the island. But the girls came, at last, to a spot where they again beheld a dirty ca.n.a.l boat made fast to a tree on the sandy sh.o.r.e. A huge woman, with a coa.r.s.e, dreadful face, sat out on deck holding a baby in her lap. Several small children played near her. But there was no sign of Mollie. Captain Mike was gone, and with him his sailboat.

Phil went as near the edge of the sh.o.r.e as she could. The woman gazed at the four chums with sullen curiosity. She presumed that they had come to ask her husband to take them out sailing. But Phil spoke up boldly: "May we see your daughter?" she inquired politely. "I met her the other day on the island and told her we would come to see her."

The woman's expression changed at once to an ugly scowl. Phil and Madge wondered why their request should make her so angry. What harm could come from their calling on the poor, half-crazed girl? Surely it was plain that they meant her no wrong.

"We want to be friends with your daughter," Madge declared haughtily; "we do not wish to injure her."

"Moll ain't here no more," the woman replied sulkily. "Her father has took her away. She ain't never coming back." The woman grinned as the four girls went away.

"O Madge!" Phil exclaimed, with her eyes full of tears, "I do feel so sorry. I am afraid we have come too late. Poor Mollie will think I have broken my promise. What could have happened to her? Do you think her horrible old father has put her in an asylum? She told me that he often threatened her, unless she did whatever he said."

"Don't worry, Phil dear," Madge replied sympathetically. "Perhaps the woman was telling us a story and simply did not wish us to see her daughter. I will come to the island with you again. Maybe we can find her next time."

The girls hurried on until they were almost at the place where they had left their rowboat. Phil was unusually sorrowful and silent. She still carried her little basket with the gifts for her new friend. The memory of a pair of wonderful blue eyes haunted her. Mollie's face had looked so longingly into hers; it was filled with a wistful sorrow and was haunted by fear and loneliness. It was not that of one who is mad.

"Girls," spoke Phil quickly, "will you go on down to the boat and wait for me? I am going to run over to the tent and take another look in there. At any rate, I am going to leave this basket of food. I won't be gone but a minute."

Phyllis walked rapidly toward the tent. She half hoped she would find the vanished girl inside it. But the tent was still empty. Phil set down her basket. She was strangely disappointed and grieved. She could do nothing more. There was nothing to do save go back to her friends. As she stepped toward the tent opening her foot caught in a piece of ragged carpet. Like a flash Phyllis remembered. Had she not told Mollie to slip a note under this carpet if she was ever in trouble or in danger and desired their help? Phil slid her hand under the rug and found a torn sc.r.a.p of yellow wrapping paper. On it was penciled in the handwriting of a child:

"I am in much trouble. Please, please come to help me. You promised."

CHAPTER XVI

THE ATTEMPTED RESCUE

"I will go back to the shanty boat with you now, Phil," volunteered Madge when Phyllis returned to her chums, carrying the pathetic sc.r.a.p of paper. "We have the food you brought in the basket, which we can eat for luncheon. Lillian and Nellie can row over to the houseboat to tell Miss Jenny Ann that we mean to spend the day here. Then, perhaps, they will row back for us this afternoon."

"I don't think we ought to leave you and Phil alone on this island,"

remonstrated Eleanor, "especially when you won't have a boat. If anything should happen, there would be no chance of your getting away."

"I'll tell you what to do, Nellie," suggested Phil. "Suppose you and Lillian go home and then send our boat over to us immediately. The farmer boy will bring it for us. He can tow it and then row back in his own skiff. Ask him to anchor our boat in this same place. Madge and I will come home as soon as we find out whether there is anything we can do for poor Mollie."

Lillian and Eleanor were reluctant to leave their two friends. But there seemed nothing else to be done. The thought of their chaperon's anxiety at last persuaded them to go, and they departed after promising to send the boat over immediately they reached the "Merry Maid."

"What do you think we had better do, Phil?" asked Madge as the other two girls rowed out of sight.

Phil frowned and shook her head. "I haven't the faintest idea, Madge; I am afraid we are too late to do anything. That dreadful Mike has already taken his daughter away. I believe she wrote us several days ago, when she first heard what they meant to do with her. But I can't understand why her father wishes to put her in an asylum. She is much too useful to them. She does nearly all the washing and cooking on that miserable old shanty boat."

"I do wish we had some money," declared Madge thoughtfully. "I believe Mike would do anything for money. If we could only take care of Mollie, perhaps her father would let us have her. But you and I are as poor as church mice, Phil. Isn't it horrid?"

"I don't believe the man would give his daughter to us if we merely offered to take care of her. She is too useful to him. But he might let her come with us if we could pay him a great deal of money besides.

At least, if we offered him a bribe he might be influenced to tell us where poor Mollie is. However, there is no use in talking about money.

We'll have to do the best we can without it," finished Phil.

The two friends were walking disconsolately along the sh.o.r.e of the island. Neither one of them was anxious to return to the shanty boat for another interview with the slatternly woman who presided over it.

"Phil," Madge's eyes brightened, "if we need any money to help this girl, I feel sure Mrs. Curtis will be glad to give it to us. She is rich and generous, and Tom says she dearly loves to do things for those who are in need. I should not mind in the least asking her help. She is very fond of young girls."

"She is very fond of you, at any rate," returned Phyllis, with a smothered sigh. "Sometimes I feel as though she wanted to take you away from us for keeps."

Madge laughed. "What nonsense, Phil. Why should she wish to take me away for 'keeps'?"

But Phyllis did not reply to the little captain's laughing question.

"Let's not go around to the shanty boat the way we did this morning.

Let us go back the opposite way, and then we shall have encircled the whole island," planned Madge. "If Mollie is hidden anywhere, we might happen to discover her."