CHAPTER XVIII.

WAITING FOR THE END.

The terrible night wore slowly away. If the sloop Albatross was unseaworthy she still struggled manfully and bravely with the furious tempest. It seemed at times as if human ingenuity could not put timbers together strong enough to withstand the avalanche-like pounding of the mountain surges; but still she labored on, panting and plunging through the waves that broke and swept her decks from end to end.

It was near daylight, and Harry was sitting in the manner mentioned, when he observed that the floor of the cabin was covered with water. Of course a considerable quantity had been dashed in with him at the time he was struck by the wave and precipitated to the bottom, but it appeared that this quantity was increasing.

The constant pitching and tossing made it impossible for him to measure the hight by any mark upon the side of the cabin, but a few minutes’ careful survey convinced him that he was not mistaken.

Just then the dull thumping of one of the pumps reached his ears, and he understood that the vessel was leaking.

His little knowledge of a vessel had led him to suppose that in case they sprung a leak the last place into which the water made its way was the cabin; but he could well understand how in such a gale as this such furious wrenching must open the seams in a score of places.

“She is leaking—that’s certain!” he exclaimed, as the sousing and dashing of the water made his position anything but a pleasant one. “I believe it will gain upon them too, if the storm continues much longer, so that the hold will fill with water.”

Scarcely any change was to be noticed in the thunder-claps, which continually sounded in the ear with a stunning uproar to which Harry was in a certain respect indifferent. It was not the lightning which he feared, but the sea, the tempest; it was the shivering ship, the crashing billows, whose frightful perils he could not drive from his mind if he desired, which at any moment might consign him to the merciless ocean.

Finally he concluded to make the attempt to reach the deck again, for he was convinced from the way that the boat was laboring, and the increasing water in the cabin, that she was sinking, and he judged that Captain Cole was too much occupied to leave his post, and perhaps when the critical moment came would forget him altogether and leave him to his fate.

At the very moment he placed his hand upon the door it was shoved violently inward, and the stentorian voice of Captain Cole shouted:

“Come, my boy, time’s up; are you ready to go to Davy Jones’ locker?”

A frightful scene met his gaze as he came upon deck. The night was passed, but the morning that had succeeded was scarcely less terrible.

The wind, which had been blowing a hurricane, had abated somewhat, but a rain, mixed with snow, swept horizontally through the air, with a cutting chilliness; the billows came sweeping tumultuously forward, so close after each other that they looked like the snowy ridges of countless mountains; the hold of the vessel was half full of water, and she plunged and struggled like some dying monster.

No sunlight lit up the dreadful scene, but a gray, horrid mist shut out all sight for a distance of a hundred yards; the seamen seeing that all further effort was useless had lashed themselves to the rigging, but the stern Captain Cole disdained all such assistance, and managed by herculean strength and skill to keep himself from being washed overboard by the waves that broke ceaselessly over the deck.

Harry saw it was sure death to venture away, and he crouched down by the cabin, so as to permit it partly to shield him from the fearful avalanches of water.

The minutes seemed of eternal length, but he had been here only a few seconds when he became aware of a dull, booming roar that rose above the tumult of the tempest. The captain, maintaining a position near him, seemed to divine his thoughts, and stooping down so as to bring his mouth close to his ear, shouted:

“It is the breakers you hear! We shall strike in a few minutes! Hang on till the hulk goes to pieces, and then do what you can to reach shore. Can you swim?” he asked, noticing the life-preserver.

Harry nodded, for it was useless for him to attempt to speak in this pandemonium of sound.

“Can’t help each other,” shouted back the strong-lunged Captain Cole; “if I can, I’ll do all that’s possible for you.”

The Albatross was drifting rapidly toward shore, for at this moment the bold, rocky headland of the California coast loomed up to view, with the churning breakers at their base, curling and foaming in their restless fury.

The rocks looked black, dripping and unutterably cheerless in the misty morning; but the yearning eyes that peered through the fog could see also the sand of the beach at their feet, showing standing-room for any who might be fortunate enough to be cast thither.

But, behold! As Harry looked he saw the dark hull of another vessel pounding against the shore. It had struck some time before, and while the bow remained immovably fixed, the stern was rearing and plunging in a way which showed that it must speedily go to pieces. Not even an iron-clad could withstand such blows as it was receiving each moment.

Harry Northend forgot his own peril in his interest in the scene. He could discern several figures clinging to the bow, and one of them as dimly revealed through the blinding mist and sleet, he was sure was Little Rifle, while the tall, dark form near her must be that of her father.

“It’s the North Star!” screeched Captain Cole, who well understood the anxiety of the lad; “we’re going to strike pretty near her. Hello!”

This exclamation was caused by a sudden thumping jar, followed by another plunge and then a fearful shock, that threw the captain forward upon his face, causing him to roll heavily against the gunwale, which he clutched, barely in time to save himself from going overboard.

Every blow of the waves only drove the prow the more firmly into the sand, while the stern, still in deep water, worked heavily around, until that, too, remained fast, and the Albatross thus lay broadside on, exposed to the full fury of the tempest; but a moment later, from some unexplained cause, the bow was lifted, and by a strange action of the waves, swung around, so that it pointed directly out to sea, and the rudder was the part nearest shore.

This rendered the stern the safest part, especially as the bow began working down in the sand, and it became necessary for Harry to shift his position. The seamen, by ascending some distance up the rigging and lashing themselves fast, had placed themselves above the reach of the waves, and Captain Cole, feeling that nothing else remained, prepared to do the same with Harry.

Watching his chance, he dashed forward, and catching the hand of the boy, had him at the foot of the ladder in a twinkling. Here another surge caught them, and but for the help of the officer, the boy would have been shot out on the crest of one of the billows, like an egg-shell.

But he knew what was required of him, and he went up the ladder as nimbly as a monkey, the captain at his heels, neither pausing until they reached a safe point, where they could maintain themselves with comparatively little difficulty for some time.

The trouble was, that if compelled to remain here very long, the driving sleet would so benumb their limbs that they would become unable to maintain their hold. The seamen, although strong and rugged men, had been on deck for twelve hours, and needed to be lashed to make sure of their footing.

But every probability was that not a soul would be left on board at the end of an hour, and this precaution was unnecessary in the case of the two who had last ascended.

It was not until Harry had been perched here for several minutes that he was able to take a survey of his surroundings.

As the chief officer had predicted, they had struck the beach very near the other vessel—less than a hundred feet separated them—and, as the lad looked off in that direction, he saw among the three figures clustered at the bow that of Little Rifle.

Most of the crew of the North Star had also lashed themselves to the rigging, but the bow being much more sheltered than was that of the Albatross, the three persons mentioned were enabled to maintain themselves with little exertion.

The tall dark figure, which Harry supposed to be the father, had placed himself in such a position as to shut off most of the fury of the tempest from his loved daughter.

And Little Rifle, holding on like a heroine, as she was, looked off in the rigging of the other ship, and saw Harry Northend, who was also gazing toward her.

“Does she recognize me?” was the thought in the mind of the lad, as he gazed wistfully at her.

His heart warmed with delight, even at this awful time, when the next moment he saw her raise her hand and wave it toward him. Regardless of his own danger, he returned the salutation, and shouted back, but the sound scarcely reached the ears of the captain, directly below him.

In that moment what must have been the thoughts of Little Rifle?

She could but have known what the presence of Harry Northend meant at this time. That one glance must have told the story of his patient, loving following of her through forest and mountain, and over river and sea, until finally they were brought face to face again in the midst of the tempestuous fury of the Pacific.

“Ah! what would I not give for the privilege of exchanging one single word with her?” thought Harry, as he remained gazing steadfastly across the short but impassable chasm. “I wonder which of us will have to go first?”

Soon shall the question be answered.