Chapter XVI: Help Arrives

Mr. Cartwright was dining alone on his Japanese veranda, as his wife was with the yachting party, and was not expected to dinner.

Jones, the butler, came in softly, placing the soup in front of his master. As he put down the plate his hand shook. Surely he heard a cry!

At the same moment Mr. Cartwright started up. "Jones, what was that?" They both stood still. There was no further sound.

"Must 'ave been children playing, sir," suggested Jones, and Mr. Cartwright continued his dinner.

"Help, help!" The sound came from afar off, loud and shrill. This time there was no mistake.

"Coming!" Mr. Cartwright shouted. "Coming!" As he ran across the lawn, closely followed by Jones, he snatched a heavy coil of rope left by the workmen who had been swinging hammocks and arranging for Mrs. Cartwright's outdoor bazaar.

"Call again, if you can," Mr. Cartwright yelled. Faintly, a voice seemed to come up out of the earth. "Help, help! Oh, please!"

Mr. Cartwright caught the direction of the voice, and ran along the cliffs. In a moment he espied the fallen bridge and guessed what had happened; then he and Jones saw the two girls in their perilous position.

Leaning over, he called: "Can you hear me?"

Bab answered, "Yes."

"Then keep still," shouted Mr. Cartwright, "and I'll have you up here in a moment."

Quickly he knotted the rope around Jones's waist; then, some yards farther on, he tied it round his own. "Go back," he said to his butler, "and lie down." Jones was large and heavy; Mr. Cartwright was a tall man, thin, but strong.

Slowly he lowered himself to the tree where Bab had tied her poor rope, and flung an improvised lasso over to Bab. "Not me," said Barbara, forgetting her grammar. "Ruth first."

"Can she climb with the help of the rope?" asked their rescuer.

Ruth had not spoken, but she opened her eyes, gave a shudder and fainted.

Like a flash Bab had thrown the lasso over her shoulders, and Ruth hung swaying in the air! Fortunately her feet were still on the ledge of the rock. Mr. Cartwright caught his rope round the tree, at the same time calling to Jones, "Throw me another coil!" He then clambered down and half carried, half dragged the fainting Ruth to the top of the cliff.

Once above, he dropped his burden, and again flung the lasso over the edge of the rocks to Barbara, who, crawling and being pulled by turns, came up in safety. When she had reached the top, and stood by the side of the fainting Ruth, Bab's courage deserted her, and she burst into tears.

"Get the young ladies to the house at once," ordered Mr. Cartwright, far more frightened than he had been while playing rescuer.

How fared the yachting party? They did not have a good day. Hugh was in a bad humor because Ruth had not come; Ralph missed Barbara, and, try as they might to avoid it, the conversation would drift back to the lost emeralds.

"I shall never understand it," said Mrs. Erwin to Aunt Sallie, in subdued tones. "The detectives say they have made a thorough search of my servants' quarters, have watched their movements ever since the night of the theft, and they can find none of them of whom they are even suspicious. They do say"--this time Mrs. Erwin dropped her voice to a whisper, for the woman who was with Mrs. Post at the time of the robbery was approaching them--"they say that the burglar was probably--one of the guests!"

This woman, who had worn a gold-colored brocade, was an American, who had married a Frenchman, but her husband was supposed to have been dead several years. She had come to Newport, this season, with letters of introduction, and was already very popular.

"Do you know," she inquired, "where Miss Le Baron and Mr. Townsend are? No one has seen them recently."

"Oh," laughed Mrs. Erwin, "we leave those two young people alone. I believe they have an affair of their own. Have you known Mr. Townsend before this meeting?"

"Oh, no," replied the woman, in a curious tone; "at least, I have met him once or twice. I can't say I know him."

"Ladies," Governor Post said, coming up to them, "I believe I will cheat you of part of your sail today. There are ugly clouds gathering, and I think it better to put into harbor. We can go ashore, or not, as we feel inclined."

As the yacht neared the shore, Miss Sallie grew restless. It was the first time since the beginning of their trip that she had been separated from any of her girls. As soon as dinner was over she begged Governor Post to put herself, Grace and Mollie ashore. Immediately the rest of the party agreed to disembark with her.

Ralph and the two girls followed Aunt Sallie home. For once, she hurried on before them, urged by a kind of foreboding.

She found Mrs. Ewing, white and frightened, walking up and down in front of her gate. Mr. Ewing and the maids had left the house, half an hour before, to search for the lost girls.

Thoughtlessly Mrs. Ewing rushed up to Miss Stuart. "Have Ruth and Barbara joined you?" she asked.

"Why, no," replied the two girls in amazement. Ralph stared in surprise; but Miss Sallie spoke firmly. "Tell me, at once, what has happened." In the midst of real danger Miss Stuart was a different woman, as Mr. Stuart well knew when he allowed her to chaperon the automobile girls.

Mrs. Ewing had nothing to tell. All she knew was that the girls had gone out for a long walk, and, at eight o'clock, had not come back.

"Come with me, Ralph," Miss Sallie demanded. Grace and Mollie followed them.

"Don't be frightened, Mollie," Grace begged, trying to talk cheerfully, though she was trembling violently. "Rely upon Ruth and Bab to get safely out of a scrape."

Just as they reached the end of the street that turned into the cliff walk, Miss Sallie espied a servant of the Cartwrights running in their direction. "Stop him!" she commanded Ralph.

"Sure, mum, I am to tell you," the gardener's boy said, "the young ladies was not killed."

"Not killed!" the girls cried, in horror. Ralph took hold of Mollie's hand.

"That is what I was to say, mum," said the boy, evidently much excited. "They is not much hurt and will be home soon."

"Take me to them, at once," ordered Miss Sallie, asking no further questions. The gardener's boy led the way.

When the party arrived, Mrs. Cartwright, still in her yachting suit, ran out to meet them. Ruth came to the door, walking a little stiffly. Barbara followed her, and straightway begged Mollie not to cry.

"It's all over, silly little Mollie," she whispered, "and neither Ruth nor I am hurt. We are just a little scratched, and very dirty, and we want to go to bed."

"Mr. Cartwright has already had the doctor in to see us, Auntie," said Ruth. "He is in the drawing room now. We have no broken bones or strains, though my shoulders ache rather badly."

Mollie and Grace were both crying, just because there was nothing, now, for them to cry about.

Miss Sallie made Ruth sit down again, as her niece was almost too weak to stand. After listening in silence to Ruth's story, Aunt Sallie held out her hand to Mr. Cartwright. "My brother and I can never thank you, and I shall not attempt it. Ruth means all our world." Then she turned to Barbara, and gathered her in her arms. "My child," she said, "you are the bravest girl I ever knew." Miss Stuart choked, and could say no more.

"Do you remember, Bab," asked Mollie, when Barbara was safe in her own bed, "how once you said you would one day repay Ruth and Mr. Stuart for their kindness to us? Well, I think, and I know they will think, that you have kept your promise. Yes; I'm going to let her go to sleep, Miss Sallie," Mollie called back, in answer to Miss Stuart's remonstrance.

Ruth and Barbara were utterly worn out, and had been put into warm baths and rubbed down with alcohol. "I am not even going to give two such sensible girls doses of aromatic spirits of ammonia," declared the doctor, who had driven over from Mrs. Cartwright's with them and had seen the girls safely in bed. "They will be all right in a day or two," he assured Miss Sallie, "as soon as they get over the nervous shock."

It took six telegrams to Mr. Stuart and Mrs. Thurston to persuade them the girls were unhurt and able to remain in Newport.