Chapter 4

CAUGHT IN A WATERSPOUT

The next morning the _Etta_, with Dick on board, started for Chokoloskee. The weather was bad, with a succession of squalls from the southwest, and the captain kept in the lee of the line of keys instead of taking the straight course across the Gulf. But he carried all sail till the rotten main-sheet parted at the boom, and when he came up in the wind to lower the sail the main throat halyard refused to unreeve. Before an order was given Dick was half way up the mast and soon came riding down to the deck on the gaff. When reefs had been taken in the sails, the sheet replaced, and the boat was again under way, the captain said to Dick:

"Who taught you sailoring?"

"Captain Wilson taught me some, and--"

"That's enough. You don't need to mention anybody else. What Wilson doesn't know about sailing, sponging and fishing isn't worth knowing."

By noon they were about twenty miles southwest of North-West Cape and, as the wind had moderated, the reefs were shaken out and the bow of the _Etta_ pointed due north, straight for Sand-Fly Pass. The breeze grew less and less, and in two hours had died away entirely. From the northeast a black, threatening cloud was moving slowly toward them, while the sails flapped idly as the _Etta_ rolled to a heavy ground swell. The cloud came nearer and grew blacker, while swirling little tails dropped from it, almost touching the water, and then suddenly returned to the black mass above.

"What a funny cloud," said Dick to Captain Tom. "Does it mean a hurricane?"

"No. This is the hurricane month, but hurricanes always give a day or two's warning through the barometer and that hasn't changed a tenth in a week. But this is worse than a hurricane if it hits us. Those are waterspouts in the making, that you see dropping from the big cloud, and when one of them gets a good hold on the water you will see something that you won't forget as long as you live, which won't be a great while if it hits us," said the captain.

Almost as he spoke a great inverted cone of cloud settled down from the mass above and touching the surface of the water set it whirling furiously. The water from the Gulf was lifted skyward, in a column which constantly grew broader at the base while its pointed top, mingling with the almost equally solid cloud, gave hour-glass form to the huge, swirling, threatening mass that bore down on the _Etta_, within a half mile now. Suddenly the waterspout separated from the great cloud mass and moved rapidly eastward. For ten minutes the crew of the _Etta_ watched it until, when more than a mile distant, the waterspout collapsed more suddenly than it had formed and from the foam-covered water a great wave rolled outward, spreading until the _Etta_ rocked in its path.

"Thank goodness, that trouble's over," said Dick to the captain.

"Yes, but how about this one?" replied Captain Tom, as he pointed to the big cloud which was now within two hundred yards of them and more threatening than ever. Another waterspout was forming and soon its roar filled their ears, while a towering mass seemed to spread over their heads, ready to fall upon and crush them. Already, spiteful patches of wind, torn from the revolving cyclone, slapped the sails of the _Etta_ as if to tear them from the mast.

"Shan't I take in sail?" asked Johnny of the captain.

"No use," was the reply. "When that thing strikes us nothing will make any difference and a bit of breeze in the next minute might pull us out."

For a long minute they watched the approaching demon which was now within a hundred yards and its tremendous suction was already disturbing the water about them when the captain shouted:

"Launch the dingy and get aboard; leave the oars to me!"

In an instant the little dingy had been slid overboard and the boys were sitting in the stern; then Captain Tom stepped aboard and was soon pulling mightily away from the _Ella_ and across the line of progress of the waterspout. But it was all too late. The dingy was less than two hundred feet from the _Etta_ when she began to toss, lifting her bow high and then plunging it deep beneath the surface. The first touch of the waterspout carried away mast and sails and swept clear the deck. In another instant the schooner was engulfed, but her bulk broke the back of the waterspout and it began to sway; its straight, smooth column began to kink up and break, and many hundred tons of water fell crashing into the Gulf. When the great column fell the dingy was within three hundred feet and, as Captain Tom threw his weight on the oars in a last effort to increase the distance, one of the oars snapped and the captain fell on his back in the bow of the boat, striking his head on the gunwale with a force that stunned him. At this moment the outflowing wave from the falling water swept over the skiff, rolling it upside down. Dick, who was a regular water-dog, saw the big wave coming and, as it rolled the dingy over, he sank for a moment beneath the surface till the wave had passed, then came up with all his senses alert. He swam to the capsized dingy, which was near him, and was soon joined by Johnny.

"Where's the captain?" shouted Dick. "We've got to find him. Look everywhere, Johnny."

The broken water was now tossing madly and it seemed an age to Dick before he caught a glimpse of the captain's head on the crest of a wave two boat's lengths distant. He swam to the place, and searched the water above and below, diving until he was exhausted. He was losing hope when once more the captain's body came to the surface and Dick seized it. He started for the dingy with his burden, but was fearing he would never make it, when he found Johnny beside him, saying:

"Here, you're played out. Put your hand on my shoulder. I can take care of the cap'n, too."

"All right, you take care of the captain. I can get back to the dingy."

When they reached the dingy the water had become so much smoother that they were able to rest while clinging to the side of the dingy and holding the captain's face out of water.

"Don't 'spose Cap'n's dead, do yer?" said Johnny.

"Don't think so, but we've got to get this dingy bailed out and get him in it, mighty soon. Then I know what to do to bring him to, if there's life in him. Lend me your cap and I'll bail out the dingy."

"That ain't the way we bail boats down here," said Johnny, who got into the dingy and began to rock it. In about a minute he had rocked it nearly dry and finished the job with his cap. Dick then climbed into the dingy and the boys pulled the body of the captain beside it and, bearing down on the gunwale until water began to come in, dragged it aboard, half filling the dingy as they did it. As Johnny began to bail again a feeble voice beside him whispered:

"What you fellers doin'?"

The captain soon got stronger, and said he was all right but for a headache which was splitting his skull. He tried to rise, but fell back in a faint, and Dick told him he must lie still and give orders, which Johnny and he would obey. Then Dick stood on a thwart and studied the water as far as he could see, hoping to find an oar. He saw a mast, a hatch cover and some broken fragments from the _Etta_ and at last the blade from the oar which the captain had broken. Johnny and he paddled with their hands until they recovered the oar blade. As a light breeze had sprung up from the south, which was causing them to drift northward, they headed south, paddling and watching by turns, until they found the lost oar. Then Dick, resting the oar in the sculling hole, called on the captain for orders.

"Better strike out due east and make for Nor'-West Cape. That's the nearest land and we're liable to be struck by a squall 'most any minute. Then there's a cocoanut grove at the Cape and you'll be thirsty by the time you get there."

"Gee!" said Dick, "I'm thirsty now. Wish you hadn't spoken of it."

Dick put his weight on the oar and as he swung back and forth on it the captain called out:

"You sure can scull, boy, but take it easy; you've got over a dozen miles of it to the Cape and near fifty more up the coast, after that."

"Where do I come in?" said Johnny.

"Go 'way, child, this is man's work," replied Dick, as he swung easily on his oar, but with a vim that drove the dingy through the water at good speed.

Johnny begged for his turn, but didn't get it for two hours, by which time the tops of the cocoa palms could be seen. Then Captain Tom began to feel better and talked of doing his share of the work, upon which Dick whistled a few bars of "Go 'Way Back and Sit Down," which the captain seemed to understand, for he gave no more trouble.

It was nearly dark when they landed on a beach at the border of a forest of cocoa palms and in a few minutes Johnny had a dozen young nuts on the ground and was hacking at the tough husk of one with his knife. When the ape-faced end of the nut had been laid bare and the eye cut out with a pen-knife blade, he gave the nut to Dick, who was soon absorbing the most delicious drink of his life. There was about a pint of milk in each nut, and it took a round dozen to quench the thirst of the three. They broke open half-grown or custard nuts and ate their pulpy meat and they tried some of the hard flesh of the mature nut.

The castaways built a fire on the beach for cheer and warmth and piled up fallen leaves of the palm to soften their beds on the sand. Captain Tom told the boys that the plantation house was not occupied, and that the next house down the coast was a number of miles distant and just opposite to the course they wanted to take. He then added that he was no more captain now than his companions and would give no orders, but he advised that they start up the coast before sun-up and do a lot of their sculling in the cool of the morning. The boys collected a couple of dozen of nuts to keep down their thirst and when the sun rose they were several miles up the coast.

About nine o'clock Dick said to the captain:

"I wish it was breakfast time. I'm starving."

"Have your breakfast any time you want it."

"Want it now."

"All right," said the captain, who was sculling, and he headed the dingy for shore, where it struck on a reef at the mouth of a stream.

"Now, if you boys will rustle some wood I'll have your breakfast ready."

"I don't see anything to eat round here," said Dick.

"How would an oyster roast strike you?" asked the captain.

"My, but wouldn't an oyster taste good? Do you s'pose there is one within ten miles?"

Johnny laughed and said:

"What you standin' on? Must be a hundred barrels on 'em."

Dick looked down and was amazed to see that the whole reef was composed of oysters--oysters of all sizes, oysters single, in small bunches and in great masses.

"Woods are full of 'em," said the captain, and he pointed to the mangrove trees that lined the stream, the lower branches of which were burdened with bunches of oysters bigger than Dick's head. A fire was made and branches of these trees containing bunches of oysters were thrown on it. A few minutes later the branches were taken off of the fire, with shells bursting open showing hot, steaming oysters ready for the sharp sticks which took the place of forks with the castaways. After Dick had filled himself with roast oysters, he ate a few dozen raw, by way of a change, and then went back to his roasting, until he was so full that he told Johnny that he never wanted to eat again as long as he lived, at which Johnny grinned. Only three hours later, as Johnny was sculling over a shallow bank, he stopped work and began to thump the bottom with his oar.

"What is it?" asked Dick.

"Bottom covered with clams. Reckon I'll pick up a few for Cap'n and me. You said you didn't want to eat again, ever," replied Johnny.

But both of the boys went overboard and in a few minutes had put more clams aboard the dingy than the whole party could have eaten in a week.

The castaways camped on their second night at the mouth of Lossman's River, where they had a famous clam-roast. They found a fisherman's house where they got fresh water and a can to hold it, also some cornmeal, with which Johnny made an ash-cake, or, as Dick called it, Johnny-cake. The captain said it was the best thing he had ever eaten, and Dick engaged him on the spot as a camping companion on his hunt for his chum.

The next morning the boys slept till the sun had risen and the captain awoke them to look upon a gorgeous picture seldom to be seen. The unclouded sun was shining brilliantly and the eastern sky clear and bright, but in the west a storm was gathering. There were snow-clad peaks brilliant with sunshine, thunder-heads black as midnight from which lightning was playing, while above and beneath them all shone a perfect double rainbow and an equally perfect reflection of it from the mirror-like surface of the Gulf. So perfect a double-circled rainbow the captain had never before seen, and, though he lived near the coast, Johnny had never seen one at all. By the time they had finished their breakfast of roast clams and ash-cake the rainbow had melted away and the storm-clouds were nearer, but Dick wanted to start on up the coast. The captain shook his head and Johnny recited:

"Rainbow in the mornin', sailors take warnin'."

Half an hour later all hands were glad to run to the fisherman's house, from the doorway of which they looked out upon storm-driven sheets of rain that shut out the Gulf and fell in hissing masses upon the palmetto roof that covered them, while the continuous blaze of lightning and crash of thunder gave Dick his first taste of a tropical thunderstorm. Half an hour later the sky was cloudless, the sun more brilliant than ever, and the only reminder of the storm that had passed was the sullen roar of the surf as the big waves broke on the beach.

When Johnny proposed to renew their voyage and the captain assented, it was Dick who held back.

"What can we do out there?" said he, waving his hand toward the white-capped waves that were sweeping in and sending their foam high up the beach. Johnny only laughed in reply, but the captain and he dragged the dingy, in which two poles had been placed, out into the surf until the waves rolled waist deep past them.

"Tumble aboard, both of you," ordered the captain, as he stood by the stern of the craft, holding its bow squarely against the incoming waves. The boys climbed aboard, and Dick, following Johnny's example, seized a pole and together they held the boat against the sweep of the surf until the captain was aboard with the oar in his hands. It was exciting work and as they pushed on and out, with each new wave tossing the bow of the boat in the air and spilling its crest of water and foam over the gunwales, Dick exclaimed:

"Isn't it glorious? I never had such fun," and even the captain smiled assent.

They pushed on until outside of the breakers and among the smooth-rolling waves, where the deepening water made poling difficult and they resumed their sculling. The captain took the first trick, while Johnny bailed out, with his cap, the water that the waves had spilled aboard.

Everything went smoothly and there was no more excitement on the trip until in the afternoon, when Dick was working the sculling oar. He was swinging it slowly, as he looked down into the water, when there appeared suddenly, just under the dingy, a great black creature, broader than the boat was long. As it rose nearer to the surface, almost touching the craft, he saw a great open mouth, three feet across, with a heavy black horn on each side of it, which looked quite equal to disposing of Dick and his boat at a single bite. The sight was so frightful that Dick impulsively thrust his oar against the creature, and was instantly thrown from his feet as the stern of the dingy was tossed in the air and a column of water fell upon and around him. When the commotion was over and Johnny had crawled back into the submerged boat and was rocking it dry, Dick said to Captain Tom, who was swimming beside him:

"I believe I'll swim the rest of the way. I'm getting tired of being pitched overboard every few minutes."

After they were all aboard and Dick had resumed his work with the oar, he asked the captain:

"What was that thing that looked like a devil, that I hit and that hit back?"

"That was a devil-fish. They are perfectly harmless," said the captain, adding, reflectively, "unless you punch 'em."

The tide favored the castaways at Sand-Fly Pass and they reached Chokoloskee Bay without further adventure, but then came the painful part of the trip: telling the owner of the _Etta_ of its destruction by a waterspout. All the comment Mr. Streeter made was:

"Glad none of you went down with the boat."

The captain and Johnny went to their homes, while Dick accepted Mr. Streeter's invitation to stay with him.