31
　　Over the Sea of Adventure
　　‘It’s no good,’ said Bill, in a low voice. ‘I must stand up. I don’t want them to machine-gun theboat.’
　　He stood up and waved, then put both hands up to show that he surrendered. A boat put off fromthe seaplane and came rapidly towards Bill’s boat. In it were three men, one of them holding arevolver in his hand.
　　The children waited, panic-stricken, fearing to hear a shot at Bill. They had none of them raisedtheir heads, but they could picture all too plainly what was happening.
　　The boat came near – and then there came a loud cry of amazement¹ from it.
　　‘BILL! By all that’s wonderful, it’s BILL! Why on earth didn’t you welcome us, instead ofmaking us think you were part of the gang!’
　　‘Good heavens! It’s you, Joe!’ yelled Bill, and the relief in his voice brought all the children totheir feet at once. ‘Look here, kids – it’s Joe – my colleague. Hey, Joe, you got my message then,all right?’
　　The boat came alongside with a gentle bump. Joe put away his revolver, grinning. ‘Yes, I gotyour radio message all right – but I guess you didn’t get ours. We kept asking you questions, andall you did was to go on repeating the same old thing. So this seaplane was sent out and we werejust cruising along looking for the lagoon² you told us about, when we spotted³ your boat here. Sodown we came to investigate.’
　　‘Thank goodness,’ said Bill. ‘We’d run out of petrol. We were expecting the enemy to send aplane or a boat out after us at any moment!’
　　‘Come along to the seaplane,’ said Joe, who had bright blue eyes and a very wide grin. ‘Will thekids mind flying?’
　　‘Oh no. We’re used to it,’ said Jack⁴, and helped the girls into the boat where Joe stood.
　　‘Are we rescued?’ said Lucy-Ann, hardly believing it could be true, after all their alarms andfears.
　　‘You are,’ said Joe, and grinned at her. ‘Sent one of our biggest seaplanes after you, to take youhome! Have to do that for Bill here, you know. He’s a V.I.P.’
　　‘What’s that?’ asked Lucy-Ann, as they sped towards the seaplane.

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