The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island Part 2

Jesse W. did as he was told, and both boys were hauled on board the yacht, d.i.c.k, Harry, Arthur, Billy Manners and half a dozen others pulling in heartily on the line.

They were drawn on board just in time, for the baffled shark made one terrific jump out of water as they reached the deck, the gangway having been opened, and banged his nose against the planks.h.i.+re, falling back into the sea with a great splash.

Bucephalus was at the gangway, an axe in his hand, and as the shark gave his jump he aimed a swinging blow at the monster, but failed to hit him.

"Go back dere, yo' sa.s.sy feller," he sputtered. "Ah jus' like to get one good crack at yo' an' Ah rip yo' side open. Don' yo' perambulate dis yer way again if yo' know what am salubrious fo' yo', yo'heah?"

Bucephalus was fond of using big words, but did not always use them in the most appropriate manner, so that the boys were always kept guessing as to what he was next going to say when excited.

The boys nearest the rail seized Jack and young Smith as they came on deck, and bore them in triumph to the cabin.

"Bully for Jack Sheldon!" shouted Harry, and fifty boys gave him the heartiest kind of a cheer.

"That's some nerve he showed," declared Arthur Warren, "but then, he always did have nerve, Jack did. If he didn't he wouldn't have done the things he has."

"H'm! anybody could do that," said Herring with a snarl. "The yacht was close to him all the time. You fellows are all the time cracking up Jack Sheldon, but I don't see that he is any great shakes."

"No, you wouldn't," said Billy Manners, with an emphasis on the p.r.o.noun, "but decent fellows can see it. Would you have gone over after young Smith?"

"There wasn't any need to do it," growled Herring. "If I'd seen him first I'd have done it."

"You saw it as soon as any one except Jack himself, and you were nearer the deck," said Percival, who came up in time to hear what Herring had said. "I heard you say that Jack pushed the boy overboard so as to get the name of rescuing him. You know that this is a lie, because Jack was on the bridge at that time, and could not have done it. Jack and I both saw young Jesse W. go overboard. Jack feared he might, and had started to go to the deck when the thing happened."

Herring did not care to get into a quarrel with Percival, who was much stronger and better built than himself, and he, therefore, went away muttering something which the boys could not make out.

"He is always saying something nasty against Jack," declared Arthur. "He hates Jack because Jack is smarter, and a general favorite. I wish he had stayed on sh.o.r.e, but as Mr. Smith invited the whole Academy he could not very well be left behind."

"He ought to be marooned on some solitary, uninhabited island, and left there to hate himself," chuckled Billy Manners.

"They don't do those things nowadays, Billy," said Percival. "You have been reading the lives of the pirates, and are full of that sort of romantic stuff."

"Maybe I am," chuckled Billy good naturedly, "but here come Jack and young Jesse W., looking as fine as fiddles, and not a bit worse for their baths.

Whoop it up for them, boys!"

Every boy in sight responded to the summons, and gave both boys the heartiest cheers, both Jack and his young companion being favorites.

CHAPTER III

THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

Neither Jack nor young Smith felt any the worse for his tumble into the warm waters of the Caribbean, and after they had changed their clothes they went on deck to a.s.sure their schoolmates that they were all right, and suffering no inconvenience from their trip overboard.

"Jack is a great sport," declared Jesse W., "but somebody called out 'shark!' a little too quick, for I nearly went to pieces. It may Have been kind in him, but it was injudicious, to say the least."

The boys smiled at the young fellow's wisdom, and Billy Manners replied:

"Well, it wasn't me, J.W., although I know I do a good many fool things.

You can't lay that at my door, however."

"Oh, you are a facetious fellow, and keep us amused, but you do think of things," replied the younger boy. "The person who shouted 'shark,' is one of the sort who yell 'fire' at the first sign of smoke, and raise a panic in a crowded hall. They should be suppressed."

"Very true, J.W., you have the right of it," said Billy, smiling. "You get the right idea under your bonnet now and then."

Young Smith had always been fond of Jack, but he was more so now and stuck close to the older boy on all occasions, saying the next day to Jack as they were walking on deck:

"Do you know, Jack, you have done a lot for me, and it is time I did something for you. I am going to speak to my father about you. It is a bit of a job for you to get your schooling and your living and everything, isn't it?"

"Well, it is not so easy, Jesse W., and I do have a tussle now and then,"

returned Jack, smiling at the other boy's earnestness. "Still, one has to work for what he gets in this world."

"Unless he steals it, and there is no satisfaction in that," said the smaller boy wisely. "And later he has to work--in jail. What I wanted to say was that now you have done this last thing for me, saving my life, that's what it was, I think my father would like to do something for you, help you through your schooling or something like that. Of course you would not want him to give you money, for he does not put a commercial value on my life, but he could help you to get ahead and so help yourself, couldn't he now, Jack?"

"I suppose he could," Jack laughed, "and you are a thoughtful young fellow, J.W., but never mind about that. One of the sailors, Bucephalus, any one, in fact, could have done what I did. In fact, it is all in the day's work at sea, and nothing is thought of it."

"No, but no one else did it, Jack. Any one might, but no one did. Only you. Any one else could have done it, but they did not all the same.

That's nonsense about your pitching me overboard. I heard some of them talking of it. Why, you were not there. I was on the quarter deck, where I had no business to be, I suppose, with just a little bit of a low rail, and when the vessel took a sudden roll I went overboard."

"Jack saw you up there," said Percival, who was walking with the others, "and spoke about warning you that it was dangerous. In fact, he was on the way to tell you when you got ahead of him and rolled overboard."

"Jack is all the time thinking of some one," said young Smith. "That's what makes him different from the other Hilltop boys."

"Oh, then you don't think I think of others, eh? That's one on me."

"Oh, you haven't had to, d.i.c.k, you have always had some one to think for you," said Jesse W. wisely, and both d.i.c.k and Jack laughed.

"That young fellow will be doing something for you, Jack," said Percival a few minutes later when the two happened to be alone. "He is thinking of it now, and later you will hear from it."

"I suppose he will," said Jack thoughtfully, "and I don't know how I can stop him. I could not help doing what I did, but you would have done the same if you had seen the danger before I did."

"But I did not," returned d.i.c.k, "and that is just young Smith's line of argument. It is nothing that you could have done something if you don't do it. Well, you deserve all that can be done for you, and that is all there is about it, old chap."

Two days later in the middle of the afternoon, the day having been warm with very little air stirring so that the boys were glad to seek the shelter of the awnings spread across the decks, the breeze suddenly fell away and the air became fairly stifling.

The captain looked anxious, and ordered the awnings taken down, and told the boys that they had better go below.

Dr. Wise and the professors got the boys below, and none too soon, for all of a sudden a funnel-shaped cloud appeared on the horizon, spread with startling rapidity until it covered the entire heavens, and then from it shot out a fierce flash of lightning, while the wind which had died out now blew from an unexpected quarter with the greatest fury.

Being under their own steam they, of course, had no use for sails, which would have been blown away.

For all that the waves dashed them ahead with great rapidity and the propellers were now high out of water and now buried deep in the sea, the yacht being almost unmanageable.

The wind was behind them, and there was no chance of going about in such a blow and with such great waves das.h.i.+ng against them, so in pitch darkness they sped on, no one knew where.

The electric lights in the cabin and the saloons were turned on so that the boys were not in darkness, and some of the officers moved about among them telling them that this was simply a squall, and would soon blow itself out, and that there was nothing to be feared.