That evening was a merry one. Dancing and other diversions were enjoyed by the younger members of the party, and cards were played by the older ones, to the entire satisfaction of both groups. The sea was as calm as a sheet of glass, but the Captain foretold a storm, though this was hard to believe when one gazed at the wonderful starlit sky and felt the clearness of the atmosphere.
“The Captain says we will soon be off the coast of Florida, if we keep up this speed,” ventured Polly, who had stood with the man in charge of the yacht for a long time that evening after dinner.
“And there I shall have to leave you,” whispered Tom, in a moody tone of voice.
“You should be thankful that you were granted this lovely visit with Mr. Dalken’s friends,” returned Polly, purposely misinterpreting his meaning. She hoped to steer Tom away from his constant harping on his love for her, and demanding her sympathy in his distress over it.
The temperature had become so balmy and delightful in the latitudes the yacht had reached, that it was a pleasure to sit on deck or walk about while thinking of the sleety, penetratingly cold air in New York City. Tom, anxious to make the most of his fast-ending visit on board the vessel, coaxed Polly to go with him and watch the moon rise over the quiet sea.
With a desperate glance behind – much as Lot’s wife must have given after leaving Sodom to its fate – Polly sighed and agreed. There seemed to be no other alternative. Eleanor and Ruth Ashby had vanished soon after the last dance had ended, Nancy was deep in a new novel, Elizabeth was in her own room, and the rest were playing a new game of cards proposed by Mrs. Ashby.
Tom, elated at his success in securing Polly’s undivided company upon such a glorious night, walked with her to a cosy nook he had found in the stern of the vessel. Here, seated upon luxurious chairs which he had commandeered from the lounge, he felt that any girl should be willing to watch the frothy wash of the water from the rapid cleaving of the yacht through its surface, and listen to an ardent lover who had much to say in a very short space of time.
But Polly thought otherwise. She was willing to watch the churning water thrown this side and that by the stern of the boat, and she was eager to see the moon rise from the horizon of the sea, but she was not keen about hearing, again, the oft-repeated story of Tom’s love and his heartache because she would not reciprocate such love.
Just as long as Tom kept to general topics of conversation, Polly smiled and showed an interest in him. But let him launch his love story even in the least possible manner, and she instantly sat up and changed the subject to one of the weather, the moon, or the landing at Jacksonville, where they were to find friends awaiting the yacht.
Tom finally rebelled at such treatment.
“Polly, you are cruel, and you know it! Here it has been many, many long weeks since Christmas, when you showed me enough heart to make me believe that you truly loved me. But you froze up again, the next day, and since then you try to make yourself and others believe that you consider me only in the light of a good friend. If it takes serious illness or adversity to rouse your love, I’ll do something desperate to prove you!” Tom’s threat sounded ominous.
“Tom, I really think you are mentally deranged. I’ve told you over and again, that I shall take ample time to weigh my future life. It’s not going to be a case of ‘marry in haste; repent at leisure.’ I have wanted to travel and see the world, and now that I have the opportunity, it is sheer selfishness on your part to try to dissuade me from such joy and pleasure.”
“Oh, Polly! I am the least selfish lover in the world. I tag on at your heels and never receive any mark of your affection. Why, you scarcely deign to notice me, when other admirers are at hand.”
“That’s not true, but I do try to show them the same attention and consideration that any sensible girl ought to. I have said emphatically that I am not to be considered as having been captured by you, and the fact that I have to assert myself to prove it to our friends may make you think it is as you say. It is your fault that this is so. I prefer to be impartial and not give myself all the extra trouble to act as I feel, entirely free and glad to dance or enjoy the society of other young men besides yourself.”
Tom made no reply, but sat staring gloomily out over the water. Polly sent him a side glance and thought to herself: “There, that frank statement ought to hold him for a time, at least!”
The two felt that their tête-à-tête had best end before it terminated in the usual disagreement regarding love. The sky became mottled with beautiful drifting clouds which formed slowly into the long, scaly appearance of what is known as a “mackerel sky.” The smoothness of the sea had become a choppy, complaining surface of murmuring wavelets. The color reflected from the brooding sky had turned the glassy waters into a grey ominous sheet.
Almost within the shaft of light coming from the saloon lights, Polly and Tom came face to face with the Captain. He saluted and said: “Better get ready for a turn to-night. I’ve just been warning Mr. Dalken, but he seems to think I am borrowing trouble. If you listen to me, you will tie yourselves in bed in order to spare yourselves being rolled out unceremoniously before dawn.”
Polly laughed and thanked the amiable Captain, and Tom stood for a moment after the officer had left them, and stared out at the sullen sea.
“It looks perfectly calm,” remarked Tom.
“Looks often belie the true condition underneath,” returned Polly, precociously. Tom looked at her and laughed appreciatively.
In the saloon the young people were trying some of the new popular songs of New York. But their efforts met with little success, and Tom interrupted them with his comments.
“Don’t tease the storm to descend any sooner by this wailing. The Captain says we shall all be satisfied with enough groaning and screaming from the sea and sky long before morning.”
The Captain’s warning fell unheeded, however, except by Polly who felt intuitively that the change she had seen creeping over the sky and surface of the sea foreboded no good. Therefore, she persuaded Eleanor, that night, to place ready at hand her booties and a heavy ulster. She did the same.
“But why the ulster, Polly?” asked Eleanor in amazement.
“Because, should we have a terrific blow as oft times happens in these tropical latitudes, it will be well worth going up on the deck. And we will need a heavy storm-proof coat to keep us dry.”
It was past eleven o’clock when the party on the yacht broke up and every one said good-night to every one. It was not yet twelve when Polly advised Eleanor to keep her booties and wraps at hand in case she wanted to don them in a hurry, and it was only a few minutes past twelve when, both girls, having jumped into bed, heard a strange soughing of the wind and immediately following that, the confused shouts of the Captain and his mates to the sailors on board. Both girls felt the rise of the sea by the way the yacht dipped and careened as if at the mercy of the storm.
“There! The Captain was right when he warned us of this,” murmured Polly, turning about in order to get out of her bed.
The shouting and excitement on deck continued and Eleanor decided it might be interesting for her to follow Polly’s example and dress hurriedly in order to investigate the cause of all the commotion. Before she could reach out to take her stockings and shoes, however, she was thrown violently against the wall at the back of her bed. Polly, too, was tumbled willy nilly up against the wash stand.
“Well! I neve – !” began Eleanor, but she never completed her exclamation of dismay. Such a roar and rumble from all sides, and such shouting and shrieking, drove all ideas from her active brain.
The shouts came from the officers outside, the shrieks from Elizabeth who occupied the neighboring cabin.
Hail, great volumes of water, and bits of debris were hurtled against the glass in the portholes, and at the same time the awful rolling and tossing of the vessel added dismay to braver hearts than that of the spoiled darling of a foolish mother in New York.
The storm drove the yacht straight southward, which was fortunate; also it was a fortunate matter that the Captain had foreseen this change in weather and had prepared for it in time. What he had not expected, and an unusual experience it was, was the cloud-burst which followed the advance signals of the hurricane.
Polly and Eleanor had managed to get into their heavy storm coats and shoes, and were prepared to leave their room and watch events when the sound of a heavy metal grating against the door of the corridor which opened into the living room of the yacht, made them exchange glances.
“That sounds as if we were prisoners. It must have been the iron bar that the Captain said they used when there was danger of the heavy seas breaking the doors open,” said Polly.
“All the more reason why I should wish to be out and get the benefit of such a storm,” ventured Eleanor.
“And all the more reason why I shall hold you indoors,” instantly retorted Polly.
Eleanor laughed. “Yet you were the one to suggest that I get out my coat and shoes, to be ready to hurry out and watch the storm should it come our way.”
“I had no idea that we were bound to run head first into a hurricane, or a tidal wave! I meant a simple, little old-fashioned gale.”
Suddenly the White Crest lay over on her beam ends and both girls slid helplessly down against the wall where they clutched at the smooth door, trying to hold to something firm and trustworthy. The sound of the screeching, howling wind now rose to a deafening shriek which prevented any one from hearing a word spoken, even though the speaker was close to one’s ear.
By sheer means of strength and purpose Polly managed to drag herself up to a level with the round porthole, in order to get a look outside. She steadied herself in this slanting position while holding fast to the brass hinges and knob of the heavy-framed glass.
“Oh, Nolla! It is magnificent! The waves are a mass of boiling, seething phosphorescence which actually light the whole sea! If you can hold fast, try to stand up and see.”
By dint of clinging to Polly’s legs and then holding fast to her waist, Eleanor managed to stand beside her friend just long enough to take one look at the fearsome sight of the ocean.
With a hushed cry of dismay Eleanor let go her hold and in another minute she was rolled over and over upon the floor with no means of ending the game of bowls until she had clutched the leg of her bed.
“Oh, Polly! I wish I had never looked! I’m sure we shall not be able to combat such a storm,” wailed Eleanor.
“Don’t you go and follow Elizabeth Dalken’s example of fear and cries for help,” came from Polly who still clung to the window and watched with fascinated eyes. But even her powers of endurance gave way as a monster wave, crested with such bluish, iridescent light as would have daunted the bravest nerve, rushed up against the plaything which Mr. Dalken believed to be proof against all the elements.
It struck the craft with a thundering blow and at once it seemed as if pandemonium was loose. Elizabeth yelled and screamed, other voices could be heard shouting and screaming at the top of good powerful seamen’s lungs, and the pounding of water on the deck and against the door made both girls shiver with apprehension. Polly had let go her grasp on the brass knob when the unexpected flood of water came up against the window, consequently she was shunted over against the wall beside Eleanor.
Half a dozen great seas went over the craft while Polly and Eleanor crouched against the wall in utter despair of thinking of a way to hush the nerve-racking screams from Elizabeth. When the storm seemed to reach its height, and the girls felt that they would be lost unless something happened quick, there came a sudden and awesome lull.
“Oh, thank goodness, it is over!” sighed Eleanor getting to her feet, and making an effort to reach the door of her room.
“Let’s get out and join the others, Nolla, because I have heard that such sudden lulls are merely harbingers of something worse,” advised Polly.
“There can be nothing worse than what we’ve just passed through,” said Eleanor, with a hysterical sound in her tones.
“Oh, yes, there can! Hurry into Mrs. Courtney’s room,” said Polly, pushing her friend quickly out of the room and over to the door of the room where they expected to find their friend.
The room was vacant. The girls stared at each other, and Polly thought she heard voices in Elizabeth Dalken’s room. She managed to reach it, open it, and then, before she could say a word, the lull was broken.
Both girls were tossed like cockle shells into the room where Mrs. Courtney was trying to soothe Elizabeth Dalken’s nervous hysteria. At the same time such a frightful sound of pounding waters on the deck and sides and top of the yacht drove apprehension deeper into their souls. Even courageous Mrs. Courtney showed her sense of fear.
“What is that noise?” whispered Eleanor in a weak voice.
“I don’t know, dear,” replied Mrs. Courtney, “but it sounds like a cloud burst. The moment it is over we shall be all right.”
And this is what it turned out to be. A hurricane from off shore, suddenly sweeping up gigantic clouds of water by its sheer force of velocity across the waves, and then suddenly emptying its sac of water over the defenseless craft which bravely defied the storms, endeavored to sink it.
With the pouring out of its last vial of wrath the hurricane subsided, and in half an hour all was quiet without: all but the shouting and rushing of the sailors as they ran to and fro on their duties. With the four in one small room, Elizabeth felt safer and was soon quieted. Then when the vessel seemed to resume its untroubled course, she settled down and fell asleep. Mrs. Courtney and the two girls who had been hurtled into the room, left her and closed the door softly as they went out.
“I am going to go out and see what can be seen,” ventured Polly, but Mrs. Courtney dissuaded her.
“You may be in the way of the carrying out of the Captain’s orders, Polly. Better remain satisfied with going to the saloon. I expect to find all the others there before us.”
Thence the three made their way, and true to predictions, the grown-ups were assembled there talking over the narrow escape they had just had.
“What time is it?” asked Eleanor of Tom Latimer.
“It must be near dawn,” added Polly, anxiously.
“Well, it isn’t,” replied Tom, as he took out his watch. “I had not yet taken off my coat and vest when this storm came upon us. I rushed out of my room at the first blow and offered my services to the Captain, but he had prepared, thank God! We wouldn’t be talking over events now had he not understood the forecast of the weather.”
Tom showed the two girls his watch and to their surprise they realized that all had happened in less than twenty minutes. It was but just one o’clock.
“Then we ought to get back to bed and coax our beauty sleep to soothe our nerves,” laughed Mrs. Courtney.
“So we shall, as soon as Shink sends in our hot malted milk. He claims it will soothe any nerves – the way he can concoct it. I ordered him to prepare a cauldronful for the crew, too, as they needed calming more than any one I ever saw. Not from fear or nerves, but from doing the work of ten times their number in order to keep us afloat.” Mr. Dalken seemed seriously thoughtful for a moment after he spoke, then he added:
“I am the only one here who realizes the close call we had. The Captain with his preventive measures before the storm broke, and the ready obedience of his crew, saved us this night. Not only did we run foul of one of the fiercest hurricanes that sweep over the sea at this latitude, but we also managed to get under the deluge that broke when the hurricane began to lose power and let go its hold on the great mass of water it managed to hold aloft during its swift circling about our poor little craft.
“Thank God for that Swedish lad! Had it not been for his powerful muscle in the moment of extremity, we would now be without a Captain. It all happened so suddenly that no one had time to think. The sudden cloud burst, or water spout, fell just as Captain Blake started to cross the deck, and the volume of water would have carried him overboard but for that young giant. Instead of thinking he acted. He threw an arm about the brass bar and caught hold of the Captain’s arm as he was washed past him. With a grip like steel the rescuer managed to work his way, hand over hand clutching to the water-washed rail, until he had reached safety.
“Well, such is the life of a sea-faring man!” concluded Mr. Dalken, as he sat and thought of the past danger.
CHAPTER V – TOUCHING AT PALM BEACH
Before the White Crest reached her first port, which was Jacksonville, Mr. Dalken must have regretted his invitation to his daughter Elizabeth to become one of his party for the cruise. She had not only taken every occasion to contradict her father when he made any statement, but she sneered at all he said. Naturally this superior air from a young girl deeply annoyed Polly and Eleanor who were Mr. Dalken’s sworn allies; and the friends who knew and admired their host without limitation, also felt diffident at such times as Mr. Dalken was so rudely criticised.
Said Eleanor to Polly one night before retiring: “If I were Dalky I’d take Elizabeth to the express train going to New York and I’d ship her home to her butterfly mother!”
“It’s one thing to say such a thing, but quite another matter to accomplish it,” returned Polly.
“Well, anyway, we may find some way in which to leave her behind when we touch at Jacksonville or Palm Beach.”
“Oh! Are we going to stop at Palm Beach?” exclaimed Polly.
“Why, yes! Didn’t you know? It was Elizabeth’s coaxing that caused Dalky to agree to stop over there to have dinner at the Ponce de Leon. Perhaps we shall spend the evening there and return to the ship to sleep.”
“That’s great! If Elizabeth should meet any of her New York friends at the hotel she may prefer to remain,” ventured Polly.
“I’m hoping the same thing. If only we could hypnotize people we might bring some one she likes right into her pathway,” laughed Eleanor as she jumped into bed.
The following morning the yacht reached Jacksonville where Tom Latimer was supposed to leave his friends and start back North. But John and Anne Brewster were persuaded to remain on board with their friends till they reached Palm Beach, hence Tom decided to remain too, and thence accompany his bosom friend John back to New York.
“If Tom insists upon dogging my every step as he has been doing on the yacht, I don’t see that I am going to have a good time,” pouted Polly, as she heard Eleanor’s news that Tom would go on to Palm Beach.
Eleanor laughed teasingly. “That’s what a young girl gets for having a beau who is daffy over her!”
“But, Nolla,” complained Polly, “it isn’t my fault that Tom won’t take a broad hint to mind his own business!”
“Perhaps he thinks this is his business – the business of getting the girl he has made up his mind to marry,” declared Eleanor.
“Well, then! You can just tell him from me, Nolla, that he is going about it in exactly the wrong way to interest me in himself. A girl hates to be tagged, just as a man loses interest in a girl who is forever putting herself in his way to be noticed.”
“I’ll tell him!” agreed Eleanor, laughingly.
But it was not necessary that Eleanor warn Tom of his over-zealous attentions to Polly, because a general surprise awaited the mariners when the vessel docked. Not only did Eleanor find a telegram from her father, in which he said that unexpected trouble at his bank kept him in Chicago, and prevented his joining the happy friends on the White Crest, but Mr. Dalken also found his ward, John Baxter, and his friend Raymond Ames waiting to come aboard. Every one believed Jack to be in New York.
“Well, well, boys, where did you hail from?” was Mr. Dalken’s first words as the two young men leaped upon the deck and ran to present themselves.
“Why, immediately after you sailed I met my friend Ray who was bound for a position in Panama. Being so lonesome with all you friends away, it took but little coaxing from him to persuade me to accompany him,” explained Jack.
Even while the new-comers were being overwhelmed with questions from the mariners, Mr. Dalken called a hasty council of war and discussed the advisability of going ashore to see the town, or to continue on to Palm Beach. It was unanimously decided that Jacksonville contained nothing of interest to the sailors, the three guests just arrived, having seen all they wanted to see at the city. Hence orders were given to pull up anchor and sail away to the famous winter resort where all and sundry kinds of sport might be found.
With the coming of Jack and Ray on board the yacht, the girls showed more life and interest in planning to pass the time. Tom felt so much the senior of the two young men who now vied with him for Polly’s smiles, that he joined his chum John Brewster, and held aloof from the younger members in the party. Not till Anne reminded him that he was acting the same mistaken part he had played on board the ocean liner at the time it docked at Quarantine in New York City, did he rouse himself to look pleasant and agreeable when Polly danced and laughed with the friends of her own age.
The small damage done the yacht in the hurricane, which she had braved and came out of the victor, was soon attended to by one of the mates who had been a ship’s carpenter before Mr. Dalken’s alluring salary had tempted him to join up on Captain Blake’s crew. Long before the White Crest arrived at Palm Beach the repairs had all been done and the craft was looking as pert and fresh as any millionaire’s vessel within a radius of twenty miles of the Beach.
Of all the merry-makers in that party of mariners not one cared very much what food was served for dinner at the Ponce de Leon, but every one did take a personal interest in the groups of young people, the life of society at that gay season in Palm Beach, and the fun they expected to get out of the visit to the fashionable hotel and the evening hours spent on shore.
Eleanor had hinted to Polly that it might be possible that Elizabeth Dalken would find a number of society friends from New York at the hotel, and so she did.
Naturally they came buzzing about her, and, to impress her yachting associates with her social prestige, she smiled sweetly upon the trio, and accepted their invitation to go with them. Elizabeth did not deem it necessary to ask her father’s consent to leave his party and attach herself to that of her newly-found friends from New York; neither did she hesitate to go with them minus a proper chaperone, although she had seemed very particular about criticising other girls who may have overlooked Mrs. Grundy at times.
As Mr. Dalken was not present in the group when Elizabeth took French leave, and Mrs. Courtney was not asked about a chaperone for that evening, the girl hurried away to enjoy herself as she saw best. Mr. Dalken, returning soon after her departure, seemed amazed that she had gone, but he said nothing at the time and immediately turned his full attention to the entertainment of his guests.
Polly and Eleanor had insisted that the younger members in the party dress in their very best. This called for Mrs. Courtney and her elderly friends to dress up to the standard set by the girls. And this, naturally, compelled the men to give more attention to their evening clothes and general appearances than they might have done without this spur from the ladies. Hence it happened that not a single unit of gay persons at dinner that night in the magnificent hotel could surpass the appearances of Mr. Dalken’s party. As he remarked later:
“It was to be expected of such an extraordinary bouquet of beautiful females as I conducted from my yacht. Others might have shown costlier jewels and handsomer gowns but not one could compete with my flowers where beauty was the test.”
As it mattered little at what hour the passengers went back to the yacht, they made the most of this gay evening on shore. John and Anne Brewster were to leave the party the next day and start back to New York for a week before returning to Pebbly Pit Ranch. And Tom Latimer, now that Polly expected to be away from New York for many months, felt inclined to accompany his friends back to his work at Choko Mines. Perhaps it was his salvation that Polly decided to take this cruise, otherwise he may never have found courage or inclination enough to go back to his mining interests.
Having danced herself breathless, Polly finally consented to hear Anne’s whispered suggestion that she leave a few moments to Tom before he got mad and walked back home. With a little laugh Polly sent Jack Baxter a sorry look and told him to go find Elizabeth for a dancing partner.
“But I’d rather dance with you, Polly. What is Mrs. Brewster saying to you that makes you look so remorseful?” replied he.
“I’m telling Polly of a very urgent duty, Jack, and you know, as well as I, that you must not monopolize all her time this evening,” retorted Anne.
“Well, seeing that I am going to be one of the passengers on Dalky’s yacht for a long time, I believe I will release Polly to Tom for a short time,” remarked Jack in a casual tone.
“Oh! You are not really going on the yacht, are you?” exclaimed Polly.
“Why? Do you object to my company?” demanded Jack.
“Oh, no! It will be lots livelier with Ray and you on board. But no one has mentioned it before, so I naturally thought you and Ray were here for a short visit at the Beach, then planned to go back to New York to continue your studies,” explained Polly.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Jack in a thoughtful manner, “I’ve convinced Dalky that the great mining interests of the Argentine need my personal investigation. You must not forget that a great deal of my fortune is invested in mining shares in South America; and these mining companies have their central offices at Buenos Aires. Dalky can tell you that a visit to these brokers, now and then, makes them sit up and take notice of you. Otherwise they might ignore your dividends, you see.”
Anne jeered at such an explanation for Jack’s hurried decision to visit South America. “I can safely vouch for your remaining in the United States, were it not for the fact that you find a bevy of pretty girls on your guardian’s yacht too alluring for you to renounce. You plan to get the most fun out of this cruise and then go your way, leaving a string of broken hearts behind you. That is the reputation you have, I find.” Anne laughed as she shook a finger at Jack.
“My reputation for drawing and then breaking hearts can never reach the championship winner and breaker that Polly is. Who can ever ignore that European tour when the subject of hearts is being discussed?” Jack shook his head in pretended sorrow for those rejected suitors on the “Other Side.”
Polly made an impatient sound with the tip of her tongue against her white little teeth, and Jack laughed.
“Just for that I am going without a single word of regret for the dances I promised you and now withhold,” said Polly, turning and running away to join the group sitting under a great palm on the balcony.
Here she found Tom moodily talking with John. But the moment Polly touched him on the shoulder and said: “Are we going for a little walk on the beach?” he brightened up wonderfully.
Polly felt that she owed Tom this short time before he would have to return west on his mining work. Also she felt that she had treated him too sternly in punishment of his short-comings. Of course, Tom had no idea that Polly considered his slavish attentions as short-comings.
As the two sauntered away from the hotel and turned in the direction of the marvellous beach, Polly began the conversation by remarking, in a cool, mature manner: “Now don’t go and talk of bosh, Tom, just because I invited you for a stroll.”
“What do you mean by bosh?” demanded Tom, ready with a chip on his shoulder.
“Oh, pooh! You know what I mean – your soft talk of love. I just won’t listen to it morning, and night, and at every moment of the day. You are the dandiest pal with Nolla and Ruth and Nancy – why not with me?”
Tom wisely held his peace. He could have answered in his own way, but he knew that would call forth a new tirade against his ideas of possession. Not having a reply from her escort with which to continue the argument, Polly found herself shut up on the subject. And wisely she, too, launched out upon an entirely opposite topic.
“Some one told Dalky not to stop at Hayti because the natives were so treacherous to white folks,” remarked Polly. “I did so want to see the Island we hear so much about. I’ve read of the voodoo religion, and the way the sacred snake charmers strike terror into the souls of their congregations, and I’d love to see them.”
“I think Dalken is absolutely right in not taking chances with you girls in landing at Hayti. Morally the Haytians are not to be trusted. All the old superstitions of barbaric Africa prevail to such an extent that no right-minded person wishes to visit there. I am surprised, Polly, that you can entertain the least desire to see what every one knows to be a deplorable condition of affairs.” Tom spoke in a fatherly way that caused Polly to smile, but he did not see her face. Perhaps he would not have continued in the same strain had he thought she was amused instead of being advised.
“Yes, Hayti is an unsafe place for civilized women to go to; not only do the authorities ignore the rights of a people under their government, but they seem to have no regard for human lives. I recently read an article in a magazine in which it stated that one unfortunate circumstance about Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, was its convenience to Hayti – all the escaping criminals and refugees from justice jumped aboard a sailing craft and in a few hours were landed upon the shores of that beautiful isle whence they could not be taken except through extradition papers.”