CHAPTER XX--SOMETHING SERIOUS

The three girls did not sleep much after that. The grumbling, stuttering notes of the foot-power horn seemed to fill all the air about the _Marigold_. Darry told them at breakfast that he used this old-fashioned horn on the yacht because it took too much steam if they used the regular horn.

"This is a great old tub," complained Burd, who had spent the previous hour at the device. "She makes only steam enough to blow the horn when you stop the engines. Great! Great!"

"You'd kick if you were going to be hung," observed his chum.

"Might as well be hung as sentenced to the treadmill. I suppose I have to go back and step on the tail of that horn after breakfast?"

"You'll take your turn if the fog does not lift."

"What could be sweeter!" grumbled Burd, and fell to on the viands before him with a just appreciation of the time vouchsafed him for the meal. Burd's appetite never failed.

The fog, however, lifted. But it was a gray day and the girls looked upon the vessels which appeared out of the mist about them with an interest which was half fearful.

"Suppose one of those _had_ run into us?" suggested Jessie. "And there is a great liner off yonder. Why, if that had bumped us we must have been sunk----"

"Without trace," finished Amy, briskly. "The old cow's mooing did some good, I guess, Jess," and she chuckled.

She had told the boys about her chum thinking there must be a cow aboard in the night, and of course they all teased Jessie a good deal about it. She laughed with them at herself, however. Jessie Norwood was no spoil-sport.

The _Marigold_ steamed into the east all that afternoon. But the weather did not improve. The hopes of a fair trip were gradually dissipated, and even the skipper looked about the horizon and shook his head.

"Seems as though there was plenty of wind coming, Mr. Darrington," he said to the owner of the yacht. "If these friends of yours are easily made sea-sick, we'd better get into shelter somewhere."

"Where'll we go?" demanded Darry. "Here we are off Montauk."

"With the direction the wind is going to blow when she gets going, we'd better run for the New Harbor at Block Island and get in through the breech there. It'll be calm as a millpond, once we're inside."

When Darry asked the others, however, the consensus of opinion was that they keep on for Boston.

"Can't we take the inside passage--go through the Cape Cod Canal?" asked Dr. Stanley. "That should eliminate all danger."

"Oh, there's no danger," Darry said. "The yacht is as seaworthy as can be. But I don't want any of you to be uncomfortable."

"I'm a good sailor," declared Nell.

"You know Jess and I are used to the water," Amy hastened to say. "Let us go on, Darry."

But the wind sprang up a little later and began to blow fitfully. The skipper considered it safer to keep well out to sea. Inshore waters are often dangerous even for a craft of as light draught as the _Marigold_.

The crowd sat on deck, keeping as much as possible in the shelter of the deckhouse, and were just as jolly as though there was no such thing on the whole ocean as a storm. Dr. Stanley told them several of his funny stories, and amused the young folks immensely.

In the midst of the general hilarity Nell went below for something. She was gone for some minutes and Jessie, at least, began to wonder where she was when she saw Nell's hand beckoning to her from an open stateroom window. Jessie got up and moved toward the place, wondering what the doctor's daughter had discovered that so excited her.

"What is it, Nell?" Jess whispered.

"Come down here--do!" exclaimed the other girl, her tone half muffled.

"What is the matter?" Jessie exclaimed, in wonder.

But she slipped around to the other side of the cabin, faced the gale, and reached the companionway. She darted down, being careful to shut tight the slide behind her. Already the waves were buffeting the small yacht and spray was dashing in over the weather rail.

Jessie found some difficulty in keeping her feet in the close cabin. It was so dark outside that the interior of the yacht was gloomy. She groped her way to their stateroom, which was the biggest aboard.

"What is the matter, Nell?" demanded Jessie, pushing open the door and peering in.

Nell Stanley's face was white. She stood by the open window. At Jessie's appearance she began to sob and tremble.

"I--I'm so frightened, Jess!" she gasped.

"Why, you silly! I thought you said you were a good sailor?"

"It isn't that," Nell told her. "Don't--don't you smell it?"

"Don't I smell what?"

"Come in and shut the door. Now smell--smell _hard_!"

Jessie began to giggle. "What do you mean? Why! I see a little haze of smoke by the window. Do I, or don't I?"

"I opened the window to let it out. But--but it comes more and more, Jessie," stammered the clergyman's daughter. "I believe the yacht is on fire, Jessie!"

"Oh! Don't say that!" murmured Jessie Norwood, suddenly frightened herself.

"When I came in the room was full of smoke and--don't you smell it?"

"It doesn't smell very nice," admitted her friend. "Where does the smoke come from? Where _can_ it come from?"

"It must come from below--from the hold under us."

"But what can be burning? This is not a cargo boat," said the puzzled Jessie. "We don't want to frighten them all, especially if it amounts to nothing."

"I know. That is why I called you first," Nell declared, anxiously. "I--I wasn't sure."

"Well, I am sure of one thing," said Jessie confidently.

"What is that?"

"This is a very serious thing if it is serious. We must tell Skipper Pandrick at once. Let him decide what is to be done."

"You wouldn't tell Darry?"

"The skipper is responsible. We won't frighten the boys if we don't need to," and Jessie tried to open the door again. "Come on. Don't stay here and get asphyxiated."

"It is all right with the window open," said Nell.

She turned to follow her chum and saw Jessie tugging at the door-knob and stopped, amazed. The other girl used both hands, but could not turn the knob. She tugged with all her strength.

"Why, Jessie Norwood! what is the matter with it?" whispered Nell, anxiously.

"The mean old thing won't open! It's a spring lock. How did it get locked this way, do you suppose?"

"You slammed it when you came in, Jess," Nell said. "But I had no idea that it could be locked that way. Especially from the outside. Oh, dear! Shall I shout for one of the boys? Shall I?"

"Don't!" gasped Jessie, still struggling with the door-knob. "Don't you know if one of them comes here and sees this smoke, everybody will know it?"

"They'll have to know it pretty soon," said Nell. "The smoke is coming in all the time, Jess."

Jessie could see that well enough. She shrank from creating a panic aboard the yacht, realizing fully what a terrible thing a fire at sea can be. If this hovering fog of smoke meant nothing serious, their outcry for help at the stateroom window would create trouble--maybe serious trouble. Jessie had the right idea, if she could but carry it out--to tell the sailing master of the yacht, and only him.

The brass knob seemed as firmly fixed in place as though it had never been moved since it came from the shop. Jessie, at last, came away from it. She peered out of the small window. If she could only catch the skipper's eye!

But she could not. At that moment there was not a soul in sight from the window. She saw sea and sky, and that was all.

"Oh dear, Jess!" murmured Nell Stanley, at last giving way to fear. "What shall we do? We'll be burned up in here!"

"Don't talk so, Nell!" commanded Jessie. "Do you want to scare me to death?"

"It's enough to scare anybody to death," proclaimed the minister's daughter. "I'm going to scream for father."

"You'll do nothing of the kind!" her friend declared. "Shrieking about this will do no good, and may do harm. Can't you see----"

"Not much, with all this smoke in my eyes," grumbled Nell.

"Don't be a goose! If we yell, everybody will come running, and will get excited when they see the smoke."

"But, Jess," Nell said very sensibly, "all the time we delay the fire is gathering headway."

"If it _is_ a fire."

"Goodness me! Where there's so much smoke there must be fire. How you talk!"

"I don't want to be shown up as a 'fraid cat and a killjoy," cried Jessie. "The boys are always laughing at us, anyway, because we get scared at little things: mice, and falling overboard, and a puff of wind. I am deadly sick of hearing: 'Isn't that just like a girl?' So there!"

"Well, for pity's sake!" gasped the clergyman's daughter. "That is just like a girl! Afraid of what boys will say of one! Not me!"

"Girls ought to be just as fearless as boys, and have as much initiative. Now, Nell Stanley, suppose Darry and Burd were shut up in this stateroom under these circumstances. What do you suppose they would do?"

Nell laughed aloud, serious as the situation was. "I guess Burd would put his head out of that window and bawl for help."

"Darry wouldn't," declared Jessie, firmly. "He would know what to do. He would realize that it would not do to start a panic."

"But if the door has been locked on us?"

"Darry would know what to do with that old lock. He'd--he'd find a way. Find out what the matter with it was."

Jessie sprang at the door again. She stooped down and looked at the under side of the brass lock. Then she uttered a shrill squeal of delight.

"What is it now?" gasped Nell.

"I've got it! There is a snap here that holds the knob so you can't turn it! I must have snapped it when I came in!" She jerked the door open and ran. "Come on, Nell!"

"Well, of all things!" gasped her friend.

But she followed her friend out of the stateroom. They ran as well as they could through the cabin and got out upon the open deck. Skipper Pandrick, in glistening oilskins and sou'wester was far aft with his glasses to his eyes. He was watching a dark spot upon the stormy horizon that might have been steamer smoke, or a gathering storm cloud.

The girls ran up to him, but Jessie pulled Nell's sleeve to admonish her to say nothing that might be overheard by the other passengers.

"What's doing, young ladies?" asked the skipper, curiously, seeing their flushed and excited faces.

"Will--will you come below--to our stateroom--for a moment, Mr. Pandrick?" stammered Jessie. "There is something we want to show you. It is really something serious. Please come below at once."