“No bird ever flew so high it didn’t have to light,” put in Dick whimsically, whereat they all had a laugh.
“Well, at all events, it looks as if we were destined to have the place to ourselves,” remarked Mr. Chadwick.
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” responded Captain Sprowl, pessimistically.
For some reason or other the old mariner did not look entirely at ease. He scanned the tree-grown coast anxiously with his binoculars.
They were just about over the crashing surf when above its roar a most peculiar sound fell upon their ears.
It came swelling over the woods and was startlingly like the cry of someone shouting out in agony.
“What in the name of time is that?” cried Tom, turning a rather alarmed face on the others.
“Indians!” shouted Dick. “We’d better steer clear of here.”
“Idt vos somevuns in pain,” declared the German savant nervously.
Again came the cry. A long shuddering wail that fairly made their flesh creep. They no longer tried to disguise their alarm, but exchanged disquieted looks.
“It is someone suffering pain,” declared Mr. Chadwick. “Better look to your rifles, boys.”
But Captain Sprowl held up his hand to command silence. The grizzled old sailor listened intently for a minute. He was waiting for a repetition of the cry that had so disturbed them.
All at once it came once more,—a moaning, long-drawn sigh this time. It was like the cry of a suffering sinner on his death-bed.
“It’s an awful sound!” shuddered Tom nervously.
“Awful, but blamed human,” put in Captain Sprowl with a sigh of relief, like a gust of wind. “That’s nothin’ more alarmin’ than a sea-cow singin’ her evenin’ song.”
“Dancing dairy farms of Delaware!” gasped Dick. “What on earth is a sea-cow?”
“Gives salt-water milk, I guess,” grinned Tom, greatly relieved, however, to find that the blood-curdling noise was of animal and not human origin.
“That shows that you young chaps have a heap to learn,” chuckled Captain Sprowl. “The sea-cow don’t look no more like a cow than I do.”
“Ach, no! Der zee-cow iss der manatee,” put in the professor.
“That’s right, professor, and I guess we ain’t the first that’s been scared by their unholy howlings,” said the captain.
“Idt pelongs py der family Manitidæ,” went on the professor, “undt is vun of der Herbiverous Cetacea.”