He hurried to give Jessie a hand in hauling up the heavy, slowly flapping fish. It was half as broad as a dining table, with one side grayish-white and the other slate color. The skipper gave it a glance and laughed.
"Virgin," he said. "We don't eat that kind o' fish."
"Oh, dear! isn't it a flounder?" wailed Jessie, disconsolately.
"No, no. 'Tain't worth anything," said the skipper, unhooking the heavy and ugly-looking fish.
They joked Jessie about the worthless flat-fish, but she laughed, too.
Baiting again, she threw in, and just at that moment there was a heavy splash from the other side of the yacht.
"Somebody else has got a strike," cried Amy. "Who is it?"
Nobody answered. There seemed to be nobody excited over a bite. The two lawyers were forward. Darry and Burd were aft. Jessie suddenly dropped her line and shot across the deck to the other rail.
"Oh, Amy!" she shrieked. "Where is little Hen?"
"You don't mean she's gone overboard?" gasped her chum, excitedly, and she came running in the wake of Jessie.
Henrietta's fish line was attached to a cleat on the yacht's rail. She had been standing on a coil of rope so as to be high enough to look over into the sea. The fear that clamped itself upon Jessie Norwood's mind was that the little girl had dived headlong over the rail.
"Oh, Henrietta!" she cried. "She--she's gone! She's gone overboard, Amy."
Her chum was quite as fearful as Jessie was, but she tried to soothe her chum.
"It can't be, Jess! She--she wouldn't do that! She just wouldn't!"
"But you heard that big splash, didn't you?" cried the frightened Jessie. Then she began to shout as loud as she could: "Help! Help!
Henrietta's overboard! She's gone overboard, I am sure!"
CHAPTER IX--GOSSIP OUT OF THE ETHER
Jessie's cry startled everybody on deck and Darry and Burd came running from the stern.
"Where is she? Do you see her? Throw out a buoy!" exclaimed the young owner of the yacht. "Hey, Skipper Pandrick! Lower the boat."
"Man overboard!" shouted Burd Alling.
"Get out!" exclaimed Darry. "It's not a man at all. It's little Hen. Is that right, Jessie? Did you see her fall?"
"No-o," replied Jessie. "But she's not here. Where else could she have gone?"
Burd stared up and all about. Amy said promptly:
"You needn't look into the air, Burd. Hen certainly didn't fly away."
The skipper arrived, but he was not excited. "Who did you say had gone overboard, Mr. Darry?" he asked.
"What does it matter? Can't we save her without so much red tape?"
snapped Darry. "Come on, Skipper! Get out the boat."
"You mean the little girl who stood right here?" asked the man. "Well, now, I saw how she was playing her line. She didn't have it fastened to a cleat. And she sure didn't just now fasten it when she went overboard.
No, I guess not."
"Oh! Maybe he is right," cried Jessie, with much relief.
"Well, I declare!" grumbled Darry. "It takes you girls to stir up excitement."
"But where is little Hen?" Amy asked, whirling around to face her brother.
They all stared at one another. The skipper wagged his head.
"You'd better look around, alow and aloft, and see if she ain't to be found. If she did go down, she ain't come up again, that's sure."
"But that splash!" cried Jessie, anxiously.
"Wasn't any splash except when I threw that big flatfish overboard,"
said the skipper. "And the little girl didn't scream. I guess she's inboard rather than overboard--yes, ma'am!"
The four young people separated and scoured the yacht, both on deck and below. At least, the girls looked through the cabin and the staterooms and the boys went into the tiny forecastle. They met again in five minutes or so and stared wonderingly at each other. Little Henrietta had as utterly disappeared as though she had melted into thin air.
"What can have happened to the poor little thing?" cried Amy, now almost in tears.
"Of course, she must be on the boat if she hasn't fallen overboard,"
Jessie replied hesitatingly.
"That is wisdom," remarked Burd Alling, dryly. "She hasn't flown away, that's sure."
The two mothers were on the afterdeck in comfortable chairs; Jessie hated to disturb them, for Mrs. Norwood and Mrs. Drew had not heard the first outcry regarding Henrietta. Mr. Norwood and Mr. Drew were busy with their fishing-lines. Neither of the four adult passengers had seen the child.
"I'll be hanged, but that is the greatest kid I ever saw!" exclaimed Darry Drew with vigor. "She's always in some mischief or other."
"I am so afraid she is in trouble," confessed Jessie. "You know, we are responsible to her cousin Bertha Blair for her safety."
"If the kid wants to dive overboard, are we to be held responsible?"
demanded Burd, somewhat crossly.
"You hard-hearted boy!" exclaimed Amy. "Of course it is your fault if anything happens to Hennie."
"I told you, Drew, that you were making a big mistake to let this crowd of girls aboard the _Marigold_," complained the stocky youth, sighing deeply. "While this was strictly a bachelor barque we were all right."
Jessie, however, was really too much worried to enter into any repartee of this character. She ran off again to the cabin to have a second look for Henrietta. She found no trace of her except the doll she had brought aboard and the green parasol.
She went back on deck. The fishermen were beginning to haul in weakfish and an occasional tautog, or blackfish. Amy, with a shout, hauled in Henrietta's line and got inboard a fine flounder.
"Anyway, we'll have a big fish-fry for supper. The men will clean the fish and Darry and Burd will fry them. Your mother and mine, Jess, say that they have got through with the galley for the day."