CHAPTER XVII--THE TEMPEST

Jessie, Amy, and Nell had spied, on their hike and picnic, an inlet in the shore of the island facing the mainland, on the sands of which were several fish houses and several rowboats and small sailboats that the girls were sure might be had for hire.

"We might have shipped our new canoe down here and had some fun," Amy said. "That bay is a wonderful place to sail in. Why, you can scarcely see the port on the other side of it. And the island defends it from the sea. It is as smooth as can be."

Nell was very fond of rowing, and she expressed a wish that they might go out in one of the open boats. She would row. So the three chums escaped the younger children the next afternoon and slipped over to the other side of the island, across the sand dunes.

They found an old fisherman who was perfectly willing to hire them a boat, and, really, it was not a bad boat, either. At least, it had been washed out and the seats were clean. The oars were rather heavier than Nell Stanley was used to.

"You need heavy oars on this bay, young lady," declared the boat-owner. "Nothing fancy does here. When a squall comes up----"

"Oh, but you don't think it looks like a squall this afternoon, do you?" Jessie interrupted.

"Dunno. Can't tell. Ain't nothing sartain about it," said the pessimistic old fellow. "Sometimes you get what you don't most expect on this bay. I been here, man and boy, all my life, and I give you my word I don't know nothing about the weather."

"Oh, come on!" exclaimed Amy, under her breath. "What a Job's comforter he is! Who ever heard of a fisherman before who didn't know all about the weather?"

"Maybe we had better not go far," Jessie, who was easily troubled, said hesitatingly.

"Come on," said Nell. "He just wants to keep us from going out far. He is afraid for his old tub of a boat."

She said this rather savagely, and Jessie thought it better to say nothing more of a doubtful nature, having two against her. Besides, the sky seemed quite clear and the bay was scarcely ruffled by the wind.

The old man sat and smoked and watched them push off from the landing without offering to help. He did not even offer to ship the rudder for them, although that was a clumsy operation. When Jessie and Amy had managed to secure it in place, while Nell settled herself at the oars, the old man shouted:

"That other thing in the bow is a anchor. You don't use that unless you want to stay hitched somewhere. Understand?"

"He must think we are very poor sailors," said Jessie.

"I feel like making a face at him--as Henrietta does," declared Amy. "I never saw such a cantankerous old man."

Nell braced her feet and set to work. She was an athletic girl and she loved exercise of all kind. But rowing, she admitted, was more to her taste than sweeping and scrubbing.

Amy steered. At least, she lounged in the stern with the lines across her lap. Jessie had taken her place in the bow, to balance the boat. They moved out from shore at a fine pace, and even Amy soon forgot the grouchy old fisherman.

There were not many boats on the bay that afternoon--not small boats, at least. The steamer that plied between the port and the hotel landing at the north of the island at regular hours passed in the distance. A catboat swooped near the girls after a time, and a flaxen-haired boy in it--a boy of about Darry Drew's age--shouted something to them.

"I suppose it is something saucy," declared Amy. "But I didn't hear what he said and sha'n't reply. I don't feel just like fighting with strange boys to-day."

Jessie was the first to see the voluminous clouds rising from the horizon; but she thought little of them. The descending sun began to wallow in them, and first the girls were in a patch of shadow, and then in the sunlight.

"Don't you want me to row some, Nell?" Jessie asked.

"I'm doing fine," declared the clergyman's daughter. "But--but I guess I am getting a blister. These old oars are heavy."

"We ought to have made him give us two pairs," complained Amy. "Then the two of you could row."

"Listen to her!" cried Jessie. "She would never think of taking a turn at them. Not Miss Drew!"

"Oh, I am the captain," declared Amy. "And the captain never does anything but steer."

They had rowed by this time well up toward the northerly end of the island. Hackle Island Hotel sprawled upon the bluff over their heads. It was a big place, and the grounds about it were attractive.

"I don't see Belle or Sally anywhere," drawled Amy. "And see! There aren't many bathers down on this beach."

"This is the still-water beach," explained Jessie. "I guess most of them like the surf bathing on the other side."

There were winding steps leading up the bluff to the hotel. Not many people were on these steps, but the seabirds were flying wildly about the steps and over the brow of the bluff.

"Wonder what is going on over there?" drawled Amy, who faced the island just then.

Nell stopped rowing to look at the incipient blister on her left palm. Jessie bent near to see it, too. Nobody was looking across the bay toward the mainland.

"You'd better let me take the oars," Jessie said. "You'll have all the skin off your hand."

"Why should you skin yours?" demanded Nell. "These old oars are heavy."

"How dark it is getting!" drawled Amy. "Even the daylight saving time ought not to be blamed for this."

Jessie looked up, startled. Over the mainland a black cloud billowed, and as she looked lightning whipped out of it and flashed for a moment like a searchlight.

"A thunderstorm is coming!" she cried. "We'd better turn back."

But when Nell looked up and saw the coming tempest she knew she could never row back to the inlet before the wind, at least, reached them.

"We'll go right ashore," she said with confidence.

"What do you say, Amy?" Jessie asked.

"Far be it from me to interfere," said the other Roselawn girl, carelessly, and without even turning around to look. "I'm in the boat and will go wherever the boat goes."

Nell, settling to the oars again with vigor, remarked:

"One thing sure, we don't want the boat overturned and have to follow it to the bottom. Oh! Hear that thunder, will you?"

Amy woke up at last. She twitched about in the stern and stared at the storm cloud. It was already raining over the port, and long streamers of rain were being driven by the rising wind out over the bay.

"Wonderful!" she murmured.

"Where are you going, Nell?" suddenly shrieked Jessie. "The boat is actually turning clear around!"

"Don't blame me!" gasped Nell. "I am pulling straight on, but that girl has twisted the rudder lines. Do see what you are about, Amy, and please be careful!"

"My goodness!" gasped the girl in the stern. "It's going to storm out here, too."

She frantically tried to untangle the rudder lines; but while she had been lying idly there, she had twisted them together in a rope, and she was unable to untwist them immediately. Meanwhile the thunder rolled nearer, the lightning flashed more sharply, and they heard the rain drumming on the surface of the water. Little froth-streaked waves leaped up about the boat and all three of the girls realized that they were in peril.