THE ISLAND REFUGE
Those streaks on the horizon foreboded evil weather, as Luke had feared.
None of the party on the _Isobel_ had ever seen a storm gather so
quickly. In an hour the waves were white-capped and those blue streaks
of wind had reached the zenith.
Behind it, from the west, rolled up a pallid hedge of mist, back of
which the stronger wind growled like a leashed dog. Lightning fluttered
across the face of the coming cloud-bank. Then the crackle of thunder
rose louder and louder.
Luke and Neale, even Mr. Howbridge, worked at the stalled motor. They
took turns whirling the fly-wheel. There was no more response than as
though they had stood up and commanded the tempest to recede.
Fortunately the children did not understand the threat of the elements.
Tess and Dot were not often affrighted by a thunderstorm. And Ruth and
Agnes could not wholly understand what was coming.
There was not the usual hush which is so often noted before the striking
of such a tempest. In this case the wind and lightning drew on with
equal velocity; but the rain stayed behind. On and on the forefront of
the storm came, as savagely persistent as a pack of wolves, and then
leaped upon its prey with a force that seemed to crush every object on
the surface of the sea.
The only craft in sight was their own _Isobel_. The waves flattened
about her for a considerable space, and for some moments, as though the
wind came from directly overhead.
“Get inside, every one of you girls!” commanded Mr. Howbridge, shouting
at the top of his voice. “Close that cabin door and keep it closed.”
The little ones were already below. Ruth went down the steps, shouting
back over her shoulder:
“You’d all better come too. You can do nothing here.”
Agnes scuttled behind her, terrified indeed. They jammed shut the slide.
Almost the next instant the thunder of the rain on the deck deafened
those in the cabin. The two boys and the lawyer lay under a tarpaulin
which shed a portion of the deluge. But they could not distinguish each
other’s speech.
It seemed as though the very weight of the rain must sink the
motor-boat. It thundered on the deck and foamed in the cockpit. Such a
cloudburst none of them had ever seen, or even dreamed of.
In ten minutes the rain passed. It roared on toward the east like the
rattle of a giant drum corps. But the darkness and wind remained. It was
impossible to see more than a few yards about the _Isobel_. Islands, and
all, had disappeared. But the launch was moving now—racing into the
east, like the rain, and with all the force of the wind and sea astern.
Neale crawled out from under the tarpaulin and climbed up on a cushion
seat out of the knee-deep water. That water was roaring out through the
vents, or seeping into the lower bilge. When Luke got up he made
straight for the pump and began to work it. It sucked immediately, and
the water spurted through the hosepipe.
“My goodness, boys!” shouted Mr. Howbridge, “what are we going to do?”
“Keep our eyes open for an island,” shouted back Neale.
“Hope we’ll find one,” was the muttered reply.
“Keep the old boat from sinking,” declared Luke, vigorously pumping.
“The girls will be scared to death,” grumbled the lawyer.
“Let them stay below and they won’t know much about it,” Luke told him.
“Good idea,” tossed down Neale, as he staggered upon the break of the
cabin roof.
There came a knocking on the cabin door. It was stuck.
“There! They want to get out already,” cried Mr. Howbridge.
“‘Want to’ and ‘Can’ are two different things,” replied Luke. “Let ’em
knock!”
It was not that the boys were callous, but they knew that if the girls
came out of the cabin they would immediately appreciate the full danger
of the situation. Agnes and Ruth would not be able to see much through
the narrow deadlights.
Mr. Howbridge went to the cabin slide. He put his lips close to the door
and shouted:
“Don’t bother! Stay where you are! We are all right, but must wait for
the wind to stop.”
“Let—us—out!” shrieked Agnes’ voice.
“Stay where you are and keep still!” commanded their guardian more
sternly. Then he asked the boys, with no little anxiety: “Is it safe to
let them stay down there? Suppose she should turn turtle?”
“We’re riding pretty fair now,” said Luke.
“And if she turned over they would have a better chance than we would,”
declared Neale O’Neil. “There would be air enough confined in the cabin
to keep them going for a time. But if we were thrown into this sea there
isn’t one of us could live five minutes.”
This was so evidently the fact that Mr. Howbridge said nothing more. The
lawyer was not much of an out-of-doors man at the best. He had not spent
much time on the sea or in the wilds, and he was now past middle age.
But he possessed something that not all men used to roughing it possess.
He had a broad knowledge from reading of boat-sailing as well as of
other sports.
He was less ready to show apprehension than the young fellows. The
responsibility for this condition of affairs must rest more on Mr.
Howbridge’s shoulders. The lawyer accepted this fact, and proceeded to
cudgel his brains to find a way out of the difficulty.
“We’ve got to overhaul that engine, in spite of the heavy sea, and try
to make her go,” Mr. Howbridge said. “You’ve cleared out the water
pretty well, Luke. She rises to each wave, and as long as it does not
rain again we certainly will not be swamped.”
“We need a lantern,” complained Neale. “Guess we’ll have to pry open
that door, Mr. Howbridge.”
“Think so? I don’t want the girls up here.”
“Well, we can make the little ones stay down, and Ruth will look out for
them. If Aggie insists on coming up here we’ll set her to work.”
“That will please her only too well,” said Agnes’ guardian.
Which was true enough. Agnes rushed out on deck, sputtering. Neither she
nor Ruth had any idea of the extent of the disaster. When she saw the
racing, foam-capped waves and the blackness of sea and sky, even the
flyaway was subdued.
“Are we headed in the right direction?” Ruth asked at the open slide.
“We sure are,” grumbled Neale. “Heading right with the wind. If we tried
to shift our course the wind would like enough roll us over and over
like a barrel.”
“Isn’t it fortunate the wind is heading us toward St. Sergius, then,”
observed Agnes.
“Oh, shoot!” ejaculated Neale. “Do you think even the elements play in
our favor, Aggie Kenway? According to the needle of this compass we are
heading due east, and St. Sergius is some distance behind us.”
“Oh!” gasped Agnes and Ruth in unison.
“Now, Ruth,” said Mr. Howbridge sternly, “I expect you girls to do your
share. You look out for the children in there. If Agnes insists on being
out here she can come and hold this pry-bar. I believe we’ve got to
block up the engine at this corner before she will make an even stroke.
I could see that she jarred when we started, and I should have insisted
upon having her jacked up then.”
Agnes came very meekly and did his bidding. Neale stuck to the wheel, or
the craft would have wobbled much worse than she did. Luke aided the
lawyer at the cranky engine.
Ruth tried to be cheerful with Tess and Dot. But both little girls had
already gained the impression that they were in danger. Tess asked
seriously:
“Don’t you suppose, Ruthie, that it would be a good thing if we said our
prayers, even if it isn’t bedtime?”
But Dot’s mind ran upon more mundane things. She remarked after a little
silence:
“I wonder if Sammy Pinkney was here, if he would feel much like being a
pirate on this wiggly boat?”
As the storm continued to sweep the _Isobel_ on and on, with no sign of
abatement, the older ones at least felt no desire to converse uselessly,
and the little girls went to sleep in a berth. Fortunately they were not
so seriously troubled by the peril that menaced as their elders. Even
Agnes was subdued; but she, like Ruth, was courageous.
Mr. Howbridge finally gave up the attempt to start the engine. While the
launch pitched so it was impossible to make any headway with the
crippled mechanism of the _Isobel_. They managed to make some coffee,
and with this and crackers, they tried to satisfy their appetites. Then
they went to rest for the night. But nobody slept much.
In addition to the force of the wind, a certain current must have seized
the boat, for she drove on for hours in a direction quite opposite to
that in which the party wished to go. St. Sergius and any inhabited
island they knew anything about were behind them.
With dawn the wind fell, the sea became calmer, and the clouds began to
break. The first rays of the sun, when flung into their faces, did not
dazzle their eyes so much that they could not observe an isle almost
dead ahead. A cheerful green island it was with a hill in its center on
which grew a very tall palm.
“We’re going to land there if it can be done,” declared Mr. Howbridge.
“There are two long oars and you boys do what you can with them when we
get close in.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” cried Neale cheerfully. “Looks as if we were going
to play Robinson Crusoe for a while, doesn’t it?”
“More like the Swiss Family Robinson,” Luke remarked. “Looks like a
deserted place, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t see any hotel,” rejoined the lawyer dryly. “But there is quiet
water in that cove yonder. See if you can paddle us into it.”
At any rate, the strange island offered a refuge. And a bit of solid
earth under their feet was what they all most craved.