Chapter 9 THE OWNER OF THE DISAGREEABLE VOICE

It may be that Madge had another second of consciousness. Afterward she thought she could recall being caught up by a giant, who unloosed Tania's hands from about her throat. Quietly the three of them began to float upward with such steadiness, such quietness, that she had that blessed sense of security and release from responsibility that a child must feel who has fallen asleep in its father's arms.

The first thing that she actually knew was, when she opened her eyes, to look into a pair of deep blue, kindly ones that were smiling bravely and encouragingly into hers. Near her were her three friends, looking very wet and miserable, and one little, dark-eyed elf who was sobbing bitterly. Farther away were two strange girls and one red-faced young man. Then Madge understood that she had been brought aboard the yacht that had run down their rowboat.

The little captain sat up indignantly. "I am quite all right," she said haughtily, looking with an unfriendly countenance at their wreckers. Then, feeling strangely dizzy, she sank back and with a little sigh closed her eyes.

"Don't do that," protested Eleanor tragically. "You must not faint. Captain Jules, please don't let her."

The old captain's strong hands took hold of Madge's cold ones. "Pull yourself together, my hearty," he whispered. "A girl who can dive down into the bottom of the bay as you can shows she has good sea-blood in her. She can see the old captain's diving suit any day she likes-own it if she has a mind to. Fishing for pearls isn't half so good a trade as fishing for a human life. You'll be yourself in a minute. Lucky I happened to walk down the beach in the same direction your boat went."

One of the two strange girls came to Madge's side at this moment with a cup of strong tea. "Do drink this," she pleaded. "It has taken some time to make the water boil. I wish to give some to the other girls, too. I am so sorry that we ran into you. You must know that it was an accident."

Madge drank the tea obediently, gazing a little less scornfully at the girl who was serving her, her face pale with fright and sympathy. The other girl stood apart at a little distance with a young man. They were both staring at the wet and shivering girls with poorly concealed amusement.

"We are awfully sorry to give you so much trouble," said Madge to the girl with the tea. She was trying to control her feelings when she caught sight of the owner of the small yacht and his friend and her temper got the better of her.

"I am sorry," she repeated, "that we are giving you trouble. But, really, your motor launch had no right to bear down on our boat without blowing its whistle or giving the faintest sign of its approach. It put the whole responsibility of getting out of the way on us."

Madge was sitting beside the old captain. Her direct mode of attack showed that she was feeling more like herself.

"What the young lady says is true," declared Captain Jules with emphasis. "I doubt if you have the faintest legal right to navigate a boat in these waters. If I hadn't happened to walk along down the shore of the bay after these young ladies left me two of them would have been drowned. I'll have to see to it that you keep off this bay if you do any more such mischief as you did this morning."

The young man in a handsome yachting suit worthy of an admiral in the United States Navy frowned angrily at Madge and her champion.

"I say it wasn't my fault that I ran into your little paper boat," he protested angrily. "I gave you plenty of time to get out of my way, but you girls pulled so slowly that we did slide into you. Still, if you will admit that it was your fault and not mine, I will have your old skiff mended, if she isn't too much used up and you can get somebody to tow her back to land for you. I can't; I have enough to carry as it is."

The girl standing beside the young man giggled hysterically. Madge decided that she had heard her high, shrill notes before. Phyllis, Lillian and Eleanor were furiously angry at the young man's retort to Madge and Captain Jules, but they bit their lips and said nothing. They were on his yacht, although they were enforced passengers; it was better not to express their feelings.

But Madge was in a white heat of passion over the young man's boorish retort.

"It was not our fault in the least that we were run down," she said in a low, evenly pitched voice. "We are not willing to take the least bit of the blame. You not only ran into our little boat and sunk her, but you did not take the least trouble to come to our aid when you had not the faintest knowledge whether any one of us could swim. Men in the part of the world where I come from don't do things of that kind. Put your boat back and tow our rowboat to land," ordered Madge imperiously. "We certainly will not allow you to have it mended. Neither my friends nor I wish to accept any kind of recompense from a man who is a coward!"

The word was out. Madge had not meant to use it, but somehow it slipped off her tongue.

"Steady," she heard the old sailor whisper in her ear. He was gazing at her intently, and something in his face calmed the hot tide of her anger. "I am sorry I said you were a coward," she added, with one of her quick repentances. "I don't think you were very brave, but perhaps something may have happened that prevented your coming to our aid."

"Mr. Dennis does not swim very well," the nicer of the two girls explained, sitting down beside Madge. She was blushing and biting her lips. "Mr. Dennis meant to put back as soon as he could. I am Ethel Swann. I received a letter from Mrs. Curtis this morning, who is one of my mother's old friends. She wrote that she and her son would be down a little later to open their cottage, but she hoped that we would meet you girls before she came. I am so sorry that we have met first in such an unfortunate fashion."

"Oh, never mind," interrupted Madge impatiently. "If you are Ethel Swann, Mrs. Curtis has talked to us about you. We are very glad to know you, I am sure."

"These are my friends, Roy Dennis and Mabel Farrar," Ethel went on, her face flushing. The four girls bowed coldly. Mabel Farrar acknowledged the introduction by a stiff nod. The young man took off his cap for the first time when Madge introduced Captain Jules.

"Run your boat along the side of the overturned skiff and I'll tie her on for you," ordered Captain Jules quietly. "I think I had better go along back to land with you."

Roy Dennis, who was a little more frightened at his deed than he cared to own, was glad to obey the captain's order.

Just as the girls were landing from the launch Mabel Farrar's foot slipped and she gave a shrill scream. Instantly the girls recognized the voice which they had heard the night before condemning them to social oblivion.

Although Captain Jules had only a short time before positively refused the invitation of the girls to come aboard the "Merry Maid" to pay them a visit, it was he who handed each girl from the deck of Roy Dennis's boat into the arms of their frightened chaperon. Finally he crossed over to the deck of the houseboat himself, bearing little Tania in his arms and looking in his wet tarpaulins like old King Neptune rising from the brine.

Captain Jules was made to stay to luncheon on board the houseboat. There was no getting away from the determined young women. In his heart of hearts the old sailor had no desire to go. Something inspired him with the desire to know more of these charming girls.

When the girls had put on dry clothing they led Captain Jules all over the houseboat, showing him each detail of it. He insisted that the "Merry Maid" was as trim a little craft as he had ever seen afloat.

After luncheon, at which the captain devoured six of Miss Jenny Ann's best cornbread gems, he sat down in a chair on the houseboat deck, holding Tania in his arms. He talked most to Phyllis, but he seldom took his eyes off Madge's face. Sometimes he frowned at her; now and then he smiled. Once or twice Madge found herself blushing and wondering why her rescuer looked at her so hard, but she was too interested to care very much.

She sat down in her favorite position on a pile of cushions on the deck, with her head resting against Miss Jenny Ann's knee and her eyes on the water. "Do tell us, Captain Jules," she pleaded, "something about your life as a pearl-fisher. You must have had wonderful experiences. We would dearly love to hear about them, wouldn't we, girls?"

The girls chorused an enthusiastic "Yes," which included Miss Jenny Ann.

Captain Jules laughed. "Haven't you ever heard that it is dangerous to get an old sea dog started on his adventures? You never can tell when he will leave off," he teased, stroking Tania's black hair. "But I wouldn't be surprised if Tania would like to hear how once I was nearly swallowed whole, diving suit and all, by a giant shark. I was hunting for pearls in those days off the Philippine Islands. I had been tearing some shells from the side of a great rock when, of a sudden, I felt a strange presence before I saw anything. I might have known it was time to expect trouble, because the little fish that are usually floating about in the water had all disappeared. A creepy feeling came over me. I was cold as ice inside my diving suit. Then I turned and looked up. Just a few feet in front of me was a giant shark that seemed about twenty-five feet long. He was an evil monster. The upper part of his body was a dirty, dark green and his fins were black. You never saw a diving suit, did you? So you don't know that all the body is covered up but the hands. I tucked my hands under my breastplate in a hurry. It didn't seem to me that a pearl diver would be much good without any hands. Well, the great fish made a sweep with its tail, and in a jiffy he and I were face to face. I stood still for about a second. I held my breath, my heart pounding like a hammer. Nearer and nearer the monster came swimming toward me, with its shovel nose pointing directly at the glass that covered my face. I couldn't stand it. I threw up my hands. I yelled way down at the bottom of the sea with no one to hear me. There was a swirl of water, a cloud of mud, and my enemy vanished. He didn't like the noise any better than I liked him."

The girls breathed sighs of relief. The captain chuckled. "Oh, a diver is not in real danger from a shark," he went on, "his suit protects him. But there are plenty of other dangers. Maybe I'll tell you some of them at another time. Why, I declare, it is nearly sunset. You don't know it, children, but the bottom of the tropic sea has colors in it as beautiful as the lights in that sky. The sea-bottom, where the diver is apt to find pearl shells, is covered with all sorts of sea growths-sponges twelve feet high, coral cups like inverted mushrooms, sea-fans twenty feet broad."

As the old diver talked, the girls could see the magic coral wreaths, glowing rose color and crimson, the tall ferns and sea flowers that waved with the movement of the water as the earth flowers move to the stirring of the wind. And there in the land of the mermaids, hidden between wonderful shells of mother-of-pearl, lie the jewels that are the purest and most beautiful in the world.

Madge's chin was in her hands. She did not hear the old captain get up and say good-bye. She was wishing, with all her heart, that she, too, might go down to the bottom of the sea to view its treasures.

"Madge," Phil interrupted her reverie, "Captain Jules is going."

Madge put her soft, warm hands into the big man's hard, powerful ones. "Good-bye," she said gratefully. "There is something I wish to tell you, but I won't until another time."

Miss Jenny Ann stared thoughtfully after the giant figure as Captain Jules left the houseboat and strode up the shore in search of a small skiff to take him home.

"You girls have made an unusual friend," she said slowly to Madge. "In many ways Captain Jules is rough. He may be uneducated in the wisdom of schools and books, but he is a great man with a great heart."

Before Madge went to bed that night she wrote Tom Curtis. She told him how sorry they all were that he could not come at once to Cape May. She also described the day's adventures. She made as light of their accident as possible, but she ended her letter by asking Tom if he would not send her a book about pearl fishing.

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