can take
your tub right up to the landing pier in front of the house."

"Yes, yes!" said Bates. He sprang aboard, and a moment later the engine,
perfectly restored, was started, although nothing had been done to it
since Bates went ashore, and, the anchor lifted, the _Columbia_
began her brief voyage to the pier.

There had been no accident at all! The breakdown had been a deception,
pure and simple, intended to give Bates a chance to go ashore and warn
Holmes that his prey was within his reach.

"Oh, how I despise you!" said Eleanor to Trenwith. "Go away, please, so
that I won't have to look at you!"

"Eleanor, listen!" he said, in a low whisper, pleadingly. "I can
explain--"

"If you think I'm such a fool as to believe anything you tell me now,"
she said, furiously, "you are very much mistaken!"

He saw that to argue with her was hopeless, and went forward gloomily.
In a few minutes they were ashore. Resistance, as Eleanor saw, was
hopeless; the only thing to do was to act sensibly, and hope for a
chance to escape.

"I have had three rooms arranged for you," said Holmes, when they
reached a great rambling house. "They're on the second floor. I think
you girls will be comfortable and you would rather, I am sure, have the
girls with you. You are in no danger."

CHAPTER XIII

A LUCKY MEETING

Half a dozen men had come out to the _Columbia_ with Holmes and
Bates, and now, while Holmes himself disappeared for a minute, beckoning
to Trenwith to go with him, the other men watched Eleanor and the three
girls. They drew off to a little distance, but they kept their eyes on
them.

"They don't look as if they could run very fast," said Dolly, hopefully.
"Don't you think we might be able to make a break and get away?"

"Where to, Dolly? This is an island, remember, and we don't know
anything about it at all. We wouldn't know where to run, if we did have
luck enough to get a good start--and we wouldn't get very far."

"I suppose that's so," said Dolly, her face falling. "Oh, what a horrid
shame! Just when everything seemed so nice and peaceful!"

"There's one thing," said Eleanor, her face set and stern. "They can't
hold me forever--or, at least, I don't suppose they can. And someone is
going to be sorry for this or my name's not Eleanor Mercer!"

"I don't understand it yet," said Bessie, who, although the capture
meant more to her than it did to any of the others, had not given way to
her emotions, and