NAT TO THE RESCUE.
“Wow! This is the worst ever!”
Joe was clinging tightly to the bridge of the _Nomad_.
Spray, flying like dust through the dense mid-afternoon twilight, stung
his face. The wind whipped out his garments stiff, as if they had been
made of metal, and half choked the words back down his throat.
Nat made no reply. He clung grimly to his wheel, striving with might
and main to head the _Nomad_ into the furious waves. Ding-dong Bell had
emerged on deck an instant before, but had been promptly ordered below
again.
“Keep your engines doused with oil; give them plenty of gasolene, and
stand by for signals,” had been the young captain’s orders.
Below, beside his shining, laboring engines, Ding-dong was valorously
striving to carry those orders out. But the strain on the motors was as
great as they had ever been called upon to bear, even in the memorable
encounter with the waterspouts.
Besides heading into the storm, Nat was “bucking” the strange current
that set toward the island chasm. But powerfully as the _Nomad’s_
propeller churned the driving seas, the unseen tide was more powerful
still.
“Nat, we’re bound to be drawn into that gorge within a few minutes,
unless——”
“Unless a miracle happens.”
Joe’s comment and Nat’s rejoinder were both shouted above the storm.
Their voices sounded feeble as whispers amid the fury of the
conflicting elements.
Hardly a hundred yards now separated the storm-battered _Nomad_ from
the towering walls and boiling waters of the chasm. Inevitably, unless
the miracle of which Nat had spoken occurred, they must, in a few
moments, be laboring in the midst of that ominous-looking place. While
the thought was still pulsating through their minds, and their hearts
beat high with apprehension, the dreaded thing happened.
The _Nomad_ was suddenly caught, as if by hands bent on causing her
dissolution, and hurtled straight into the cleft between the islands.
Nat, hardly conscious of what he was about, directed her course so that
the craft was not instantaneously dashed to bits against the side of
the cliffs. Joe, too alarmed to utter a word, simply clung tight to the
rail. Below, in the engine-room, Ding-dong Bell was thrown from his
feet and smashed up against a steel stanchion.
The blow knocked him senseless. And so, with her engineer unconscious,
another member of her crew almost useless from fright, and only one
guiding spirit on board her, the _Nomad_ hastened forward into what
seemed certain annihilation.
Within the cleft it was black as night. The angry seas that boiled and
gnashed between the steep walls, for an instant completely hid the
_Nomad_ from view. But presently she gallantly emerged, fighting like a
live thing for her life.
The wind, compressed within those narrow confines, blew with a force
and fury almost incredible except to those who have passed through a
South Pacific storm. It would have been impossible to cry out and make
one’s voice heard. The most powerful shout would not have been audible
a foot away. The situation of the Motor Rangers appeared to be almost
desperate.
“Can she last out? Can she possibly stand this terrific battering?”
Such were the thoughts that galloped through Nat’s excited brain. He
rang the electric signal for “more power,” but no response came from
the engine-room, where Ding-dong lay senseless beside his motors.
Then he turned about to look for Joe. Now that his eyes had grown used
to the darkness it was possible to see—as one sees on a night when the
moon is obscured by heavy clouds. The young captain’s heart leaped into
his mouth as his eyes pierced the obscurity.
Except for himself, the bridge was empty of life.
Joe Hartley had vanished!
“Swept overboard!” shot through Nat’s brain.
At the same instant he caught a cry:
“Help! Help!”
It appeared to come from far astern.
“Joe!” shouted Nat into the darkness.
“Help!” came the cry again. It was closer this time.
A coil of light but strong rope was looped to the bridge in front of
Nat. Without an instant’s hesitation, he tied one end of it about his
waist. He had reached a desperate determination. If he got a chance, he
had made up his mind to save Joe Hartley if it were humanly possible.
The other end of the coil he knew was made fast to the bridge rail, so
that a final testing of the knot about his waist was all that was
necessary to put his daring scheme into execution. But first Nat fixed
the wheel by means of the metal grips provided for that purpose.
Then, with every nerve a-quiver, every muscle flexed, he waited for
another summons. Suddenly it came.
“Help, Nat! I——”
A smother of foam swept glimmering past the Nomad. It was luminous with
phosphorescence. Amidst the greenish, ghastly glare, was plainly
perceptible a darker spot. It was a human head.
“Hold on, Joe! I’ll be with you!” shouted Nat, and then, without
hesitation, he mounted the bridge rail at the port side and plunged
into the mass of spume.
Fortunately for those interested in the adventures of the Motor
Rangers, at that instant a freak of the current spun Joe’s body about
and flung him, like a bit of driftwood, toward the side of the _Nomad_.
In a flash Nat’s strong arm was about him. It was just in time, too,
for Joe, who had been swept from the bridge unseen when the _Nomad_
encountered the angry maze of cross currents and tide rips, was almost
exhausted.
In this condition he was not in full possession of his ordinary
presence of mind. He clung to Nat desperately, with a grip that
threatened to pull both rescuer and rescued under water together.
Nat, battling with the sharp, angry waves, as choppy and angular as
giant fangs, had all he could do without struggling with Joe. Again and
again he tried to break the other’s grip, but without avail. The hold
of a drowning man or boy is the most tenacious known. It is almost
impossible to loosen it.
“Joe, you must let go of me!” gasped out Nat.
But Joe only clung in a more leech-like fashion. What with the other
lad’s dead weight clinging to him, and the conditions against which he
was laboring, Nat, strong as he was, felt his strength being rapidly
sapped.
Luckily, so intense had been the heat, the lads wore only light
tropical trousers and sleeveless undershirts. Had they been incumbered
with ordinary clothes, they could not have survived a quarter of the
time that Nat and Joe did.
Nat began hauling in on his line, but with Joe gripping him so tightly,
it was too much of a task.
“Joe, I hate to do it,” he said at length, “but I must, old fellow, I
must!”
With these words, Nat did what he would have done with anybody else
when first he realized the conditions. He struck Joe a blow on the head
that completely robbed him of his senses. The lad’s vise-like grip
relaxed. Under these circumstances, Nat could handle him easily.
By strong, rapid, over-hand motions, he hauled himself and his burden
closer and closer to the side of the _Nomad_. At last they reached it.
And now came the most difficult part of Nat’s enterprise. He had to get
back on board, and, more than that, to get Joe there, too.
The _Nomad_ was rolling and plunging till she was almost rail under at
every roll. A sudden lurch of extra violence gave Nat his opportunity.
It brought the bridge rail within reach of his free hand. He grasped it
with a tenacious grip. But the next instant he was almost flung back
into the sea again, as the little craft righted, and the lad, with his
unconscious burden, was carried high above the boiling waters.
But Nat’s muscles had been trained to nickel steel suppleness and
strength. He managed to hold on somehow, and the next roll to port of
the _Nomad_ gave him an opportunity to get one foot on the edge of the
bridge. Thus he clung till the next wild roll in the opposite direction
was over.
Then exerting a reserve force he had never before had occasion to bring
into play, the young captain drew up Joe’s limp form and bundled it
bodily within the bridge railings. This done, he clambered over
himself. But he felt queer and dizzy. He could hardly keep his feet,
even though he hung on to the rail. His head spun like a teetotum.
“I—why, what’s the matter with me? I—I believe I’m going to——”
Nat did not conclude his sentence in words. Instead, he enacted it by
giving a crazy plunge backward and collapsing in a heap, almost
alongside the unconscious Joe.