CHAPTER XI

THE WRATH OF THE STORM

For a few minutes his eyes rolled wildly as he viewed the tumbling waste of waters, but he soon overcame his dismay far enough to stagger over to Benton with the pot of coffee. The boys made their way to the same place, and the hot black liquid gave them renewed courage. Then the negro darted back to his galley, and presently reappeared with a tin pail full of sandwiches, which he sheltered from the spray under his ragged coat. These the boys thankfully devoured, after which they felt in better shape to face the perils of the night that was now falling rapidly over the tossing waste.

Benton had hoped that the storm would exhaust itself almost as quickly as it had arisen, but, on the contrary, as night fell it seemed to increase in fury. It was a fearsome thing to see the pale sheen of a great roller looming up over the stern, and the boys would hold their breaths, expecting every second to have some watery mountains come crashing down on their little craft and carry it to the bottom. At times great seas did come aboard, entirely engulfing them until the ship shook itself free and rose, shuddering, to the next blow.

Through it all Benton clung doggedly to the wheel, half smothered by the flying surges, but sticking gamely to his post. Phil fought his way aft at last, and offered to relieve him, but Benton refused to give up the wheel.

“I’ll hang on a while longer,” he yelled, “You go forward into the bows, Phil, and keep a lookout. Heaven only knows where we’re driving to, and it will be a miracle if we miss some of the reefs and islands around here. All I can do is keep us headed before the waves, and leave the rest to Providence.”

Phil shouted a few words of encouragement, which it is doubtful if Benton heard above the fiendish uproar of the storm, and groped his way forward, clutching desperately at anything that came to hand to keep from being swept overboard. Most of the rail had been demolished, so that there was nothing to save any of them from being swept over the side if they once lost their hold on some securely fastened object.

At length Phil reached the bows, and wedged himself in between the side and the capstan, straining his eyes through the inky blackness. Soon it began to rain in torrents, but this made little difference to any of the party, as they were already soaked to the skin and had been for many hours.

Swept by rain and sea, and almost deafened by the howling of the wind, Phil peered ahead, striving to pierce the murky darkness. Long ridges of white foam hissed by, so close that he could dip his hand in as the bow dropped into some boiling eddy. High above all else rose the booming and whistling of the wind, and this kept him from hearing an even greater sound until suddenly he saw a huge spout of foam not a hundred feet ahead of the ship, and at the same time heard the menacing roar of breakers.

With a shout that was lost in the uproar of the elements, he sprang to his feet and raced aft, forgetful of the seas washing across the deck. But by the time he reached Benton, the latter had also seen the ominous spout of foam, and the roar of the reef was loud in their ears as they drove toward it under the pitiless urge of sea and gale. To change their course was out of the question then, and their only hope lay in driving through some passage in the reef.

Now the reef was almost under their bows, and they all held their breath, waiting for the shock that seemed inevitable. On every side great waves leaped and hammered on the reef, spouting fifty feet into the air in sheets of foam that fell back booming onto the deck of the vessel. The surf was tremendous beyond description, and the Fleeting was picked up and whirled about like a toy. A giant roller reared its crest over them, picked them up in its mighty grasp, and hurled them toward the spouting inner reef.

With a crashing impact the vessel struck—shivered—rose—and struck again, with a sickening crunch of riven timbers. Then with the last of its expiring strength the tremendous wave smashed them clear over the reef, while a flood of roaring water tore everything living from the decks and hurled them toward the beach some three hundred feet distant.

Lucky it was for them that they were all strong swimmers. Battered and dazed, they found themselves in the lesser surf that beat upon a sandy beach, and after a desperate, choking struggle, Phil and Benton dragged themselves out upon the sand. A pale dawn was glimmering in the east, and by the sickly light they could make out black dots still struggling in the raging surf, and they knew that these must be their comrades. Almost exhausted themselves, they hesitated not a moment, but rushed back into the combing waves and deadly undertow to rescue the others.

Time and again they were swept from their feet and had to struggle desperately to regain the beach. The first one they pulled out was Dick, and, although more dead than alive, he immediately turned to and helped. Tom came next, still swimming feebly, but overwhelmed again and again by the breaking waves. There remained then only Bimbo, who could not swim, but was clinging desperately to a floating spar. As often as a wave washed him toward shore, the powerful undertow drew him out again, and he was fast weakening under the strain.

Under Benton’s directions they all joined hands, thus forming a living chain, and then battled their way into the surf once more. Phil was the outermost, and as the negro was swept shoreward on a big breaker, Phil stretched out a hand to him. The faithful darky just managed to grasp the outstretched hand as the undertow caught the spar and sucked it seaward. With a tremendous effort Benton, who was nearest the beach, exerted all his remaining strength, and they all staggered shoreward out of the inferno of breaking waves and clutching undertow. With a final desperate effort they shook themselves clear, and dropped, panting and exhausted, onto the wet sand of the beach.

For some time they lay scarcely able to move, but at length their strength began to return, and they struggled to their feet and took note of their surroundings.

Some hundred yards from the beach lay the wreck of their vessel. When it had struck the reef the mast had gone overboard, and the erstwhile trim ship was now a melancholy sight, with the waves breaking over her deck at short intervals. Fortunately, the outer reef broke the force of the rollers, so that the ship seemed in no immediate danger of smashing up, and they resolved to get as many of her stores as possible ashore as soon as the storm abated. But at present there was little they could do in that quarter, and they turned their attention to the island upon which they were stranded.

The beach was perhaps a hundred yards wide. At its landward edge were low sand hills covered with coarse grass, and beyond this rose the tall trees and tangled creepers of a dense jungle. Beyond this again the land rose steeply into a series of ridges, and as the little party gazed the same idea seemed to strike them all at the same time, and they looked at each other in startled wonder. Was it possible that an adverse Fate was relenting toward them?

Without a word Benton drew the old Spaniard’s map from the waterproof belt in which he always carried it, and they eagerly compared it with the jagged outlines before them. There were the same peaks before their eyes that the old pirate had seen and noted two hundred years before, and as they traced the unmistakable similarity the boys gave a shout of exultation. By what seemed little short of a miracle they had been cast upon Sawtooth Island!

But after their first feeling of exultation had passed, they realized that they would be as well off on any other island, unless, indeed, they could salvage some of their diving apparatus from the sunken vessel. Their immediate need was food and shelter, and without loss of time they set themselves to finding both. Thousands of clams and mussels had been thrown up on the beach, and they each gathered a quantity of these and ate them raw. Then, feeling much stronger, they set out to look for some kind of shelter from the heavy tropical rain that was still falling in torrents. There was obviously no shelter on the beach, so they approached the forest that hemmed it on three sides.

But when they reached the belt of dense vegetation, they were met by such a tangle of vines and undergrowth as defied penetration without the aid of knives and axes. They skirted slowly along the edge, looking for some opening, and at length Bimbo’s roving eyes detected the merest trace of a path through the trees.

“Dar’s a place we kin get in!” he shouted, and raced for the opening. But when he reached it he very prudently waited for the others to arrive before he ventured in.

They had to walk single file, and even at that it was slow going, as the path was encumbered by fallen trees, and great vines were festooned across it like ropes, and they had to duck under these to make any progress at all. They had almost decided to give it up for the present and return to the beach, when suddenly the path widened out into a small clearing, and they stopped to look about them.

At one edge of the clearing towered a pile of great boulders, rising so steeply that even the rank jungle vegetation had not been able to lodge on them. At the base of this granite mass there was a heavy growth of bushes and creepers, but from experience the boys knew that where there were rocks there was very apt to be a cave, and their need of shelter was urgent, as they had not had dry clothing on them for almost twenty-four hours, and were chilled to the bone.

They approached the rocks, and searched for some sign of a crevice that might protect them from the sullen tropical downpour.

Phil was the first to meet with success. As he tore up a big bush by the roots, he could see a black opening in the rock, and his shout brought the others to the spot.