IN THE GRIP OF THE STORM
For a moment there was silence in the cabin of the _Elizabeth_. Larry,
Mr. Potter and the mate stood looking at one another, while on the deck
above them sounded the rush and run of many feet, and hoarse calls and
orders.
“Cut adrift!” exclaimed Mr. Potter. “Is it possible?”
“No doubt about it, sir,” replied the mate. “I saw the cable myself,
sir, and it’s as clean cut as if some one had used the cook’s meat
cleaver on it.”
“An accident, do you think?”
“I shouldn’t like to say, sir. The captain told me to report to you,
and to ask you to step up on deck sir, when you could conveniently do
so, sir.”
“Tell him I’ll be there directly.”
The millionaire looked at Larry. The young reporter had not spoken
during the talk between the owner of the yacht and the mate. Then, as
Mr. Potter started toward his stateroom to attire himself in something
more substantial than a bath robe, Larry said:
“Do you think this looks queer, Mr. Potter?”
“I don’t know, Larry. That cable was a new one, and good and strong.
There’s quite a sea on, but not enough to have frayed the strands. And
yet he says it was cleanly cut. I must look into this. Come up on deck,
if you like, when you’ve dressed.”
“I will,” and Larry swung into his own room. The _Elizabeth_ was under
way now, and her motors were throbbing and turning the screw that
churned the water to foam under her stern.
Suddenly a girl’s voice called:
“What is it, daddy? Has anything happened? Why are we under way? I
thought we had anchored for the night.”
“So we did, Grace, but we have decided to unanchor,” spoke her father,
with a grim smile at Larry, and a motion to the young reporter to
indicate that he was to keep silent regarding the trouble.
“But what does it mean?” she insisted, from behind her closed stateroom
door. “Are we in any danger? I’m going to get up. Shall I call Madame
Androletti?”
“No! Don’t!” her father urged her. Then, under his breath he added: “I
don’t want to look after any more women folks than I have to in case of
trouble. Stay in your room, Grace,” he called to her. “Everything is
all right. We’ll anchor again soon.”
And yet how could he, with the best bower lying at the bottom of the
lake, where it remained after the cable was cut?
But the injunction to Grace not to alarm the singer was not necessary.
Awakened by the pitching and tossing of the yacht, Madame Androletti
called out, as the millionaire started up on deck to join Captain
Reardon.
“Oh, what has happened?” she wanted to know. “Are we in any danger?”
“Not the slightest, my dear Madame,” replied the millionaire. “We are
merely getting an early start, that is all.”
But it was useless to try to quiet two women, once their nervous fears
were aroused. As Larry came from his room, attired in conventional
style, he saw Grace, and the woman whose son he was seeking, come from
their rooms together.
“Oh, Larry!” cried the girl. “What is it? Where is my father?”
“He’s up on deck, Grace. It’s all right. We merely lost our anchor in
the storm, and we had to get under way to keep from being tossed on
shore. It will be all right.”
“Lost our anchor? How?”
“We’ll know soon,” replied the young reporter, noncommittally. “I’ll
let you know as soon as I find out for sure. I’m going up on deck.”
“In all this storm?” cried Madame Androletti, in some alarm.
“Oh, this isn’t bad,” laughed Larry. And yet, as he mounted the
companion stairway, and had to hold tightly to the rail, so as not to
be pitched down on his head, he realized that the storm was rapidly
getting worse.
“But I guess _Miss Elizabeth_ is a plucky enough girl to weather it,”
thought Larry grimly. “She will if she’s anything like our friend
Grace,” and he looked back into the cabin to see the millionaire’s
daughter, with her arms about Madame Androletti, trying to comfort her,
and allay the fears of the singer.
Once on deck, though the wind blew with considerable force, it was not
quite as bad as Larry had feared. True, there was a heavy sea on, and
to those who have never seen the Great Lakes in a storm, let me tell
you that a blow there can raise almost as high waves as on the Atlantic
or Pacific Oceans. The Great Lakes are lakes only in name--they are
really inland seas.
“Here we are, Larry!” called Mr. Potter, as our hero started toward
the bridge. The young reporter turned to behold, in the glare of a
storm lantern, the millionaire and the captain examining the end of the
severed cable. The first mate was on the bridge, or what corresponded
to it, steering the vessel.
“It’s cut, all right,” said Captain Reardon, as he handed the end of
the cable to Larry. “And it was no accident, either.”
“How do you make that out?” asked Mr. Potter.
“Because that’s been done with a knife. See how clean the cut is. Of
course the sharp prow of another vessel, moving at great speed, might
do it, but I don’t think it did. If a vessel had come near enough to us
to do that we’d have heard it. The man on watch didn’t report a thing,
though.”
“Then how could it have been done?” asked the millionaire.
“Some one sneaked up in a small boat, and used a knife or hatchet,”
replied the captain decidedly.
“But who----”
“The kidnappers!” cried Larry. “That’s who it was.”
“But what object could they have?” asked Mr. Potter.
“To prevent our following them,” went on the young reporter eagerly.
“We must have been too close on their trail, and they wanted to make
us meet with an accident, or else they put back out of the blow,
discovered us, and tried to wreck us.”
“Which they would have done, if this hadn’t been discovered in time,”
said the captain. “In this blow it wouldn’t have taken much to send us
on shore and then--well, it would be all up with the _Elizabeth_,” he
finished grimly.
The wind, which had been blowing steadily, seemed suddenly to increase
in violence. There was a sharp, jagged streak of lightning off to the
west, and it was instantly followed by a sharp clap of thunder.
“It’s coming on worse!” cried Mr. Potter. “Is everything snug up here,
Captain Reardon?”
“Everything, sir. You might as well get below. I’ll double the watch on
deck, and we’ll keep a sharp lookout for those scoundrels. They must be
somewhere in the vicinity, but they’ve doused their lights. A foolhardy
piece of business, too. Whew! There comes a big one!”
As he spoke a mighty wave came aboard, the stanch motor craft fairly
burying her nose in it. The spray flew aft, wetting them all.
“Better go below,” advised the captain. “It’s getting worse every
minute.”
“Here comes some one!” cried Mr. Potter, as a figure staggered toward
them. “I hope Grace hasn’t come up.”
“It’s the second engineer!” cried the captain, for the _Elizabeth_,
though comparatively a small boat, carried a full crew. “What is it?”
cried the commander.
“The port motor has gone out of commission, sir,” was the reply. “We’ll
have to limp along at half speed.”
“All right. Do the best you can. Any chance of repairing it, Murdock?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stop to look.”
“Very well. Get below, and fix it up if you can. We’ll need all the
power we can raise in this blow!”
Hardly had the captain spoken than there came a fiercer gust than any
that had preceded, and the _Elizabeth_ fairly heeled over in the grip
of the storm.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us!” cried Mr. Potter. “Let’s get
below, Larry; Grace and Mrs. Androletti may be frightened.”
“All right,” answered the young reporter, as he cast a look off into
the blackness, broken only by the white foam-capped waves. He wondered
where the kidnappers’ vessel was, and what the stolen boy was doing at
that moment.