Part 40 (1/2)

”Why,her!” exclaimed Eustace ”Mother, that must have been the boatfar away out to sea The captain of the station told us it was theirs”

”They must have picked me up soon after dawn, before the turn of the tide,” said Aunt Dorothy ”I think when I ca, I was htened than I had been even by the wreck Most of them were black-fellows--the rest I have since discovered were Portuguese; but not a soul in all that uncouth crowd could speak English or understand a word I said”

”It was pretty terrifying,” Bob agreed

”They therefore did not knohere I ca abouttheh they ns, they refused to do”

”What brutes!” exclairade lot,” said Bob in his quaint Colonial way, ”but you know they can only get the beche-de-mer at certain tides

It would have meant a dead loss to the under contract, bound to supply a certain aiven time to their chinkee employers”

”But it was horrid of them,” said Nesta, who had recovered herself entirely in the exciteree even with Herbert for once

”It was a real adventure, wasn't it?” Eustace said, appealing to Bob

”Rather ained for,” said Aunt Dorothy ”But in their own rough way the , the boat dreadfully fishy, oily, and dirty; there was not a possibility of being corumble at They took me back safe and sound to the beche-de-mer station at last, and there I heard all about you, even to the saving of Peter All the disco to my suspense about your fates till then”

The rest of the story was si the Orbans had left Cooktown, Miss Chase instantly coed the plan for the hoently as possible, and they certainly achieved their end

”I don't kno I could have borne the waiting had you cabled,”

Mrs Chase said ”I should have suffered agonies iht happen to you all the time”

”Dorothy has become quite an experienced traveller one way and another,” said Mr Chase ”You little thought, aily fro upon”

”I should think you would be terrified ever to go there again,”