CHAPTER VI

STRANDED!

Gleaming and flashing like the huge tusks of a water wolf, waiting, submerged, to gnash upon the defenseless cruiser, Tom saw the rocks, great needles of terror, for only an instant. Then a great, great, green-blue wave lifted between his straining eyes and the danger.

The wave swept on, while under their keel, another equally huge mass of water bellied up and flung the boat aloft on its surface.

Slowly the bow swung. The next glimpse Tom caught of the menace, it was off to port—but did a range of submerged reefs extend far across their path? Tom pointed out the threat to Bill and Nicky. They gasped, so close was the nearer of the needles.

All along the coast of Central America these reefs and islands, huge barrier reefs, wide, low-lying circle reefs, atolls enclosing tiny islets—all are a menace to navigation, and it is a skillful pilot who will try to take a boat in among them.

Henry Morgan was not a skillful pilot, but he had been through the barriers about the Rio Patuca mouth many times and he felt sure of his ability, coupled with an abiding faith in his “luck.”

But just after a storm, and with the seas even more wild than was their usual turbulent state, the task of getting through the reefs was one to whiten his face and shake his very marrow. Bill, looking back, saw his face of terror and, with a word to the boys, scrambled to the cabin and snatched the wheel from fingers already nerveless with fear. But the boat had paid off, the signal for full speed ahead had been obeyed, the steerageway, aided by the surge and force of the waves, had enabled them to turn aside. They swept over the first barrier on a huge swinging crest, seeing, through the clear water, that the jaws of rock seemed to gnash in fury at the loss of their prey. Tom and Nicky, gripping the capstan with one hand each, clutched one another with the other, clinging in tense, breathless waiting.

But the boat did not strike. She missed the rocks by almost a miracle. Had Henry kept his senses earlier in the voyage he would hardly have exposed them to such peril. For it was not over; it had scarcely begun!

“It isn’t only the rocks,” Nicky shrilled. “It’s—sharks!”

“Keep still,” Tom called back, squeezing Nicky’s arm reassuringly. “Watch to the fore and on your side.”

Nicky’s eyes were fixed on the swirl in the water just ahead, and on the triangular black fin to port than on his duty, and it was fortunate that no rock loomed near his post; the sharks were gathering with seemingly uncanny instinct, waiting—waiting—waiting!

Bill, once the menace of the outer reef was passed, swung the bow down the coast, and because the most powerful thrust of the waves had been subdued, although they still were big enough to roll the cruiser sickeningly, they were able to make headway, always fighting outward a few points to overcome the inswing of the water.

Along the coast Tom and Nicky could see low, sandy stretches of beach, under the broil of the sun, now full out and very hot; beyond the wide strips of sand there were dense, tangled masses of jungle, and even in the cleared air after the storm they could scent that queer, fetid odor of decaying vegetation and mold which is characteristic of the tropics. Far in the distance, landward, back of sand and jungle, bluish mountains loomed.

“Where are we heading for?” Nicky wondered, and Tom shook his head. “I hope Henry knows,” he replied. “I don’t see any opening.”

Nor, at the moment, did Henry, who, thoroughly subdued, but with a remnant of his former manhood forcing him to steel his nerves to save his own precious life, and theirs, came forward and stood, eyes roving the shore and the waters.

“What are those big waves?” Nicky asked, pointing shoreward.

“Shifting sand banks,” Henry replied huskily. “They always change. If we once get aground there, the waves would pound the boat to a pulp! And—the—” He felt a kick from Tom, and, with a glance of surprise, saw Tom’s eyes warning him not to frighten Nicky.

Tom, himself no coward, had sometimes yielded to a nameless dread of things unseen, but any visible danger tightened his muscles to their athletic perfection, settled his nerves and steadied his whole body to its dominating mind’s demands. He knew Nicky was not a coward, but he also knew that for anybody’s mind to settle on fear and think about it and worry about it, made them helpless when the need for action came.

For once Henry took a hint.

Cliff, with the tense moment at the engines over, came on deck and joined his chums for a breath of the heated, but fresher air.

“Those are shifting sandbanks,” Tom explained, pointing. “We are hunting for the channel.”

“There’s Brower’s Inlet, that place inshore,” Henry said. “Now, form a line to pass word quick to Bill how to steer, and you, Cliff, be by the engine room port to call directions—we’ll try for the shore—but I don’t guarantee—” Tom kicked his shins again and Henry, scowling, became still and intent.

Suddenly, peering hard, Henry called his orders and the chums relayed them.

“Swing her head to that swirl of water.”

Around came the bow till the wind was from directly aft.

“Full speed ahead!” And the engine picked up its heavy thud.

“Ease her off a point to port. Slow down to quarter speed.”

Toward land the great rollers, muddy and moiled, rose into swirling lines of dirty foam, then drew off to the shore.

Seaward, greater combers reared their heads and growled their fury that they had not succeeded in flinging these daring people onto their fang-like reefs.

There was a moment of silence—of quiet.

Then came a sort of sighing, from the waves, as the _Porto Bello_ swung her nose among them. She rose up over a wave, then settled; there came a trembling and a dragging as the bottom grated on the sand. She wrenched and tore herself free, like a living thing striving to help her friends at wheel and engine.

A great wave came rolling, its speed seeming to threaten that it would roar down upon the boat, her own speed diminished by the friction of her keel.

“We’re—we’re—” Henry began.

“No we’re not! We’re off!” shrilled Tom as the wave caught up to them and the _Porto Bello_, with a staggering effort, let herself be swung up into the cradling arms of the mighty water.

She staggered on; she lost the supporting force of the water and sunk down on one side; once again—and ever again for what seemed an eternity, she was lifted, borne forward, slumped down to roar and grind along the sand, or to lie, like a stricken thing, on her bulging side, the sole thing that kept her from turning over.

Bill did noble work, with Cliff again at his side, at the wheel, while Nicky and Tom stood by at the bows, one with the lead held ready if they ever got through this moiling mud and spume.

Came a wave, the greatest yet, as the _Porto Bello_ was dumped on the sand. Crash! while they all grabbed and clung to stanchions with all their strength a huge swirl of muddied water swept over them. They emerged, gasping and coughing—came another grinding, forward movement—and then, like a tired bird, safe at last in her nest, the cruiser slid over the last sand of the bar and into quiet water where, as her engine slowed, she rocked in a soft, gentle swell.

“Phew!” coughed Bill, poking out a porthole glass, and sticking his head out through the opening. “That was——”

“Stand by!” shouted Henry, wildly. “We’re in a current running back out to sea like a torrent—get her around—get her around—hard a-starboar—no, hard a——”

Simultaneously he broke off his calls and stared ahead as if chained to the spot, speechless. Tom and Nicky, staring too, stiffened.

Out from the sand protruded needles of rock, with swirling water and roiling sand partly concealing the black doom!

“Back water!” yelled Cliff. “Swing her off!”

“No—forward—full speed ahead!” cried Nicky.

Henry had sunk down and covered his eyes from the vision of the black-finned monsters congregating in the muddy waters—sharks!

Bill had the tiller ropes roaring in their channel, for he had paid no heed to the conflicting orders but, with a little prayer of devout trust that he did not mention later, he stood, gripping the spokes.

The boat had lost way, and swung sideways across the rushing water. Tom saw what was coming. Instantly he snatched loose a life preserver! Not to leap and save his life. To save all of them!

He bent low, hanging over the bow, dropping the preserver so that it met the rock, was between it and the boat as she touched.

She shuddered, and there was a crunch, but no smash. Madly yelling for full speed astern, Bill pawed his wheel over; the boat hesitated, her back-lashed propeller striving against the stream; slowly she receded from the rocks. Tom released his clutch on the preserver rope; from aft came the grind and shiver of sickening contact; the engine grated to a stop with a jar and a cough. The boat shuddered, ran forward again in the current.

“The propeller hit!” shouted Cliff, from the after deck, staring overside at a wicked fang, seeming to lick its glistening lips at him.

“It’s probably bent beyond help!” called Andy, from the engine. “The gears in the shift box are stripped. When the propeller caught it tore the gear teeth off—lucky it didn’t crack the crankshaft!”

“But we have no power,” ruefully Bill called.

There was no use for it, had they possessed it. With the strong outsweep of the water, and with a low, sandy spit jutting before them, there was nothing to be done but wait.

Gently, almost at the inlet, the _Porto Bello_ lifted her nose on a swell, and poked it experimentally into the sand.

She liked the soft bed, burrowed forward on the next low swell, and then settled down, like a baby in its cradle.

“We may thank goodness for being here,” cried Tom. “It’s not so bad!”

“Not so bad—to be stranded?” demurred Cliff.

“Better here than—out there!” Tom waved his arm toward the roaring surf of the outer reef.

“Yes,” Nicky agreed, then, ruefully, he added, “but we’re stranded!”

“Unless it’s quicksand, we’re all right,” Tom declared. “When it’s low tide we can examine the propeller.”

“But how can we get off?” urged Nicky.

“Let’s take one thing at a time—and take it as it comes!” said Tom. And Mr. Gray, somewhat shaken, but very calm, as well as Bill, agreed with Tom.