THE STORM
“Do you know how high the tide rises on this island?” asked Andy after a
pause. His voice sounded strange in that hollow, dark place, amid the
ceaseless lapping of the water on the rocks.
“How high? No, but it can’t get much higher,” answered Frank as
cheerfully as he could. “It’s been rising some time now, and it must
stop soon.”
“It seems a long time, but it isn’t,” went on Andy in that quiet voice.
“Look, it’s seven o’clock,” and he held out his watch, illuminating it
with the flashing electric light.
“Seven in the evening,” murmured Frank. “It must be getting dark
outside.” It had been dark from the beginning in the cave.
“Seven o’clock in the evening,” went on Andy, “and we came in here about
four! The tide has several hours to rise yet, and—”
He did not finish, but he glanced down at the water that was steadily
rising up on their legs.
It was chilling them, yet they dared not move much for fear of toppling
off the narrow ledge.
Frank did not answer. He was busy trying to think of some way of escape.
Yet, rack his brain as he did, no way out of the cave seemed possible.
Were they doomed to die there?
“Can we climb any higher?” asked Andy, after another period of silence.
“If we could, we might get out of reach of the water, even when the tide
is full. Let’s turn on both our lights and look at the wall back of us.”
They had been saving the fast-waning current in the electric lamps
against the time of need. They might have but little further use for it,
so both Andy and his brother pressed the springs that turned on the
gleaming lights.
In the glow they could see the black and gurgling water at their knees.
It was swirling around from the force of the tide outside that was
rushing into the cave. Though the stone thrown down by the man at the
entrance prevented our heroes from escaping, the bowlder did not fit so
tightly but what water could come in.
“Now to see what’s back of us,” spoke Frank, turning around as well as
he could on the small shelf, and flashing his light on the wall behind
him.
“Say!” suddenly exclaimed Andy, “doesn’t it strike you that the water
isn’t coming in so fast as it was?”
Frank held his light lower, and looked at the rising tide.
“There doesn’t seem to be quite so much force to it,” admitted the elder
Racer lad, “but I’m afraid that’s only because it’s higher, and because
it has to wind in and out of so many passages, and force itself under
and around the rock which that scoundrel threw down. I wish we had him
here!”
“I guess he’s far enough off by this time,” remarked Andy. “But let’s
see if there’s a way to get higher up.”
Together they examined the wall of the cave against which they had been
leaning. Frank uttered a cry of joy.
“It’s mostly dirt, not stone!” he exclaimed. “We can cut steps in it,
and climb up. Maybe we can get high enough so that the tide won’t reach
us, or at least we can keep our heads above water until it goes down.
Come on, where’s your knife?”
Working by turns, with the only knife available between them, the boys
began frantically cutting niches or steps in the dirt wall. Fortunately
it was packed hard enough so that it did not crumble. They took turns at
the desperate labor, one holding the torch, and the other wielding the
knife.
All the while the tide kept coming higher, until it was now to their
waists. But they had not yet made enough notches to enable them to stand
up, clinging by their hands and toes. For it needed four niches for each
lad—eight laboriously-cut holes in the wall, four niches for the hands
and four for the feet, some distance apart. Even when this was done it
would only raise them about twenty inches. Would that be enough?
“We can’t cut any more after this,” said Frank dully, when they had
almost finished the eight.
“Why not?”
“Because we can’t hold on in these and cut any more. The footing isn’t
good enough. If we only had a sort of platform to stand on, we could
reach up higher. As it is, I’m afraid this isn’t going to do much
good—that is for very long. The water is still rising.”
“If we only had some sticks,” exclaimed Andy hopelessly. “We could drive
them in the dirt, leaving the ends projecting, and then we could go up,
like on a ladder.”
“But we haven’t any sticks.”
“Maybe there are some on the shelf where we are standing; imbedded in
it.”
It was a slim chance, but worth trying, and by turns they stooped over
and felt down beneath the water. This had the effect of wetting them to
their shoulders, but not a piece of wood could they discover. Helplessly
they stared at each other in the dying gleam of their electric torches.
Relentlessly the water mounted higher.
“We might as well get up in the niches,” said Andy, after another long
pause. “We may not be able to climb if we wait too long.”
“Wait as long as possible,” advised his brother in a low voice.
“Why so?”
“Because it’s going to be hard to cling there. It’s a stiff position to
hold, and we ought to stay here, where we have a good footing, as long
as possible. There’s time enough when the water gets up to our
shoulders.”
It was like waiting for almost certain death, but the boys never lost
their hearts. Somehow they felt that there would be a way out—yet how it
would come they dared not even imagine. They only hoped and—waited.
“We’d better climb up now,” said Frank at length. “You go first, Andy,
and get a good hold. I’ll follow.”
“Why don’t you go first?”
“Oh, you might fall.”
“So might you.”
“Go ahead, I tell you!” and Frank spoke more sharply to his brother than
he had ever done before. Andy turned and clambered up in the niches.
They had cut them slanting to give their feet and hands a better grip,
and this was a wise provision, for it was desperate holding at best.
Frank followed his brother, and then, at the last stand, they clung
there together, listening to the lapping of the water that, raised up as
they were, even now wet their legs.
How long they clung thus they did not know. It seemed a long time, but
it could not have been more than fifteen minutes they agreed afterward,
for the water did not gain much. But suddenly the silence of the night
outside was broken by a loud report.
“Signal guns!” exclaimed Andy. “Some vessel is in distress.”
“No, that’s thunder!” said Frank. “There’s a storm coming up. But we
won’t know it—in here.”
“I hope our boat is safe, and that the _Gull_ is well anchored,” went on
the younger lad anxiously.
“As if that mattered,” thought Frank, but he did not say so. He began to
think they would never have any further use for their craft. He choked
back the dreadful fear that seemed to take possession of him.
Once more came a terrific clap of thunder, and it seemed to shake the
very island to its center.
“It’s a fierce one,” murmured Andy.
In quick succession came a number of awful reports. The earthy wall to
which they were clinging seemed to tremble. The water gurgled below
them, rising higher and higher.
“I wonder—” began Andy, after a terrific clap, but his words were
silenced in the thunderous vibration that followed. It was the hardest
clap yet, and the boys felt a tingling, numbing sensation in their
fingers.
“That struck near here!” yelled Frank.
His face was turned upward toward the roof of the cavern. He felt
something falling on his cheeks. It seemed to be particles of dirt. Then
he felt a dampness that was not from the waters below him. More
particles fell.
“What’s the matter?” cried Andy. “Something is happening. What is it?”
Before Frank could answer, had he known what was taking place, there
came a loud splash in the water at Andy’s left.
“Is that you Frank? Have you fallen?” he cried desperately.
“No, I’m here,” replied his brother. “That must have been part of the
side or roof of the cave jarred off by the thunder. Hold fast, Andy.”
There came a second splashing sound in the water, followed by another.
The drops of dampness and particles of earth continued to rain down into
the faces of the lads.
“The cave’s crumbling in!” cried Andy. “The roof is falling.”
“Hold—” began Frank.
A roar interrupted him. Suddenly the cave seemed to be illuminated by a
dazzling light bluish in color. By it the boys could see each other as
they clung to the wall. They could see the black and swirling waters now
waist high. But they could see something else.
They could look up and out through a jagged hole in the roof of the
cavern, and through that opening they had a glimpse of the fury of the
storm. They could see the lightning flashing in the sky.
For a moment the meaning of it was lost on them. Then Frank uttered a
cry of hope.
“We’re saved, Andy, saved! Now we can crawl up out of the top of the
cave and escape! The tide can’t reach us now! We’re saved!”