It seemed to the boys that they had hardly got into the spirit of the
sport, before Mr. Andrews, with watch in hand, shouted, "Time's up,
boys!"
"Oh no," groaned the swimmers. "Give us one more dive!"
"Well, one dive, and then you must come out."
The boys swam to the rocks, climbed up like dripping monkeys, and in a
minute the pool was full of eddies where the divers had gone down.
As they came to the surface, Mr. Andrews shouted again, "Come; time's
up!"
As soon as his words were spoken every head disappeared, and it was
useless to call them again until they were obliged to come up for air.
"Come on, boys; we agreed to mind!" said Joe. "Let's go ashore;" and
following his own advice, he swam in, and ran up the beach to the
bath-tent, followed by his companions, all giving whoops and cries, to
help to warm them, they said.
*CHAPTER VI.*
*THE FOG-STORM.*
There were two or three more days of pleasant weather, with boating and
fishing and target-shooting; and then a fog crept in, hiding the ocean
from view, and even shutting down like a thick curtain between the
tents.
"Thick enough to bite," Joe said.
Everything was wet, and Jonas was cross; so there was not much comfort,
although most of the party were cheerful and good-natured.
The table was taken apart and set up in the large tent; but Jonas and
his Friday had further to travel with the meals, and they grumbled
accordingly.
"No knowin' how long this fog will hang around," growled Jonas, as he
set the tin plates down with a clatter.
"I've known it to last a week," said Frank Furman.
"A week! what are you thinkin' of? It about always lasts a week! I've
known it to last a month!"
"O Jonas!" chorused the boys, glad to see any signs of good-nature,
"have you really?"
"Humph! I camped out with a party once, and we never saw the sun after
we landed till the day we left, and that was three weeks; for they were
hardy fellows, and they said they were bound to stay till that fog
cleared out, if it took all the vacation."
"Did they?" asked Joe, as Jonas paused in his story to count plates.
"No, they didn't. They got enough of it; and when the third week was
ended, and the fog was packed down tighter than ever, one of 'em said,
'Come, boys, I'll give it up. I am completely mildewed now, inside and
out. We have eaten and drunk and breathed fog for twenty-one days, and
for once I've had enough of one thing.'"
"Well, Jonas, go on; what did the rest do?" asked David.
"Why, they all said 'Amen,' and packed up as quick as they could, and
got into the yacht, and started for the nearest shore. We had to go by
the compass, because we'd no idea where the sun was. Part of the way we
rowed, and part of the way we drifted, and by-and-by we got ashore.
Once in a while I see one of them fellows, and they laugh about it now,
and call it a good joke; but they didn't laugh much then."
"You didn't neither, I'm sure," said Freitag, shrugging his shoulders.
"You are right there. I felt like I could bite a board-nail, for I had
to work around, good weather or bad. No, there was only one fellow that
called it funny, after the first two or three days; and that man nearly
killed himself laughing about it! That fellow would have found a queer
side to his own tombstone. He laughed about the fog, and he laughed at
the way the other fellows took it; and he laughed so when he left the
island, that the others threatened to throw him overboard. I've never
seen him but once since, and he began again as soon as he spied me; and
he dragged me into a shop and bought me a nice pipe, laughing all the
time the shopman was doing it up. 'That was a jolly trip, Jonas!' says
he; and I heard him chuckling after I left him.--But goodness, Freitag,
ring that bell! the breakfast will be stone-cold."
"You don't suppose this will last," said Max Bernard disconsolately.
"Our tent is dripping now. We'll all be sick!"
"Sick! nonsense! You won't get cold in a salt fog," cried Walter
Martin.
"It will most likely end in a big storm," exclaimed Jonas croakingly,
feeling quite safe in making such a prophecy.
The boys groaned at the suggestion, and one of them remarked that "there
was nothing so consoling in dull weather as making toffy."
Joe, remembering that Jonas had lost his jackknife, slipped his own into
his hand as a bribe, and got his unwilling consent to give them butter
and sugar and a chance to boil it.
Joe Chester and David Winter were chief cooks on the occasion, with a
large crowd of advisers and tasters; and when the toffy was boiled they
poured it into a baking-pan to cool, and took it to the large tent.
Although Jonas had given them a generous supply of sugar and butter,
there were so many boys the toffy was eaten before it was thoroughly
cool.
They had a great deal of fun over it, and the pleasure helped to while
away the dull day.
They could not have toffy-making every day, and the fog still remained.
Some days the fog did not lift at all, and at other times it would
disappear for an hour or two, giving them a glimpse of bright sunshine,
then it would return to wrap them in as closely as ever.
One day they had the good fortune to see a fog-bow, which is like a
rainbow in very subdued colours--"a Quaker rainbow," Joe called it.
After a week had passed, and the boys had exhausted their resources for
indoor amusement, the storm predicted by Jonas commenced in the night.
Joe waked his friend Dave by pulling his hair, words having failed to
arouse him.
"Let go there!" growled Dave.
"Wake up, boy! wake up! There's an awful storm!"
"What d'you say?" asked Dave sleepily.
"There's an awful storm, I tell you! Don't you hear the rain pelting on
the tent? The wind blows like fury. I expect our tent will be down in
a minute. The water is all running in under the canvas."
"Dripping through it, too," cried David, thoroughly awakened by the
great drops that fell fast upon his upturned face, to avoid which he
sprang from bed only to alight in a pool of water deep enough to splash
under his feet.
Both boys laughed in spite of their discomfort, and just then Mr.
Bernard came to the tent and rapped on the canvas.
"Boys, how are you getting on?"
"Oh, _swimmingly_."
"Yes, I presume so. It is a fearful storm! You are fortunate to have
your tent standing. Several have blown down. You had better come over
to the large tent. We have been strengthening the stakes around that.
Wrap yourselves in your blankets and run."
The boys got on their rubber boots, and covering themselves with their
red blankets, they opened the tent, stood a moment to watch the sheet of
rain as it descended, and then ran across to Mr. Bernard's tent, which
was about two rods away.
"Let us in!" cried Joe, bumping his blanketed head against the canvas
curtain. Some one opened the tent, and the two boys stumbled in.
"Joe and Dave!"
"Oh, got drowned out, too!"
"Did your tent go down?"
"For once Joe Chester's got water enough!"
And the boys inside made room on the table where most of them were
perched.
The teachers, with Jonas and Freitag, were driving stakes inside and
fastening the tent to them to help to anchor it; and it seemed to need
it, for sometimes the wind would sweep in beneath the canvas and swell
it like a big balloon, as if it must either burst or go up in spite of
ropes and stakes.
"God help the sailors!" exclaimed Mr. Bernard solemnly, as one of the
sudden gusts died away.
"Oh, Ralph and Ben!" cried Joe. "Where are they? Do you suppose they
are out in that little vessel, Mr. Bernard?"
"God forbid! I trust they are in some safe harbour. Fishermen are wise
in such matters."
"But if they _are_ out!" continued Joe anxiously. "Ralph will be
frightened! You know he is a coward, and afraid of the water, anyway."
"I don't see how they happened to go in a vessel," said Frank Furman.
"They went to get away from us all, poor fellows; they didn't know what
else to do," said Joe pityingly. "Besides, the weather was pleasant
then, and the water didn't look as if it ever could be rough; don't you
remember?"
"I think they have been sick enough of it before this," suggested
another.
"Oh, very likely they are safe in their own homes, and pitying us poor
wretches. They would be likely to get that fisherman to put them ashore
at the first port they made," added Ned Gould.
Still Joe worried about them, and Mr. Bernard was very solemn; he had
been anxious about the two absent lads ever since the storm commenced.
The wind continued till morning, but the rain ceased soon after
midnight, and the boys, wrapped in their damp blankets, lay across the
long table with legs dangling down the side, packed very closely
together, and trying to sleep; but the roaring of the sea, and the
rattle of the stones tossed by the waves, the creaking of the tent as it
swayed to and fro as far as the ropes would allow, all combined to keep
them awake.
Some gave up the effort to go to sleep, and tried to while away the time
by telling doleful stories of shipwrecks and other disasters; and then,
growing sleepy at daylight when the others went out to see the havoc of
the storm, they were sound asleep when Mr. Bernard's bell summoned the
boys for prayers, and they had no time for a morning toilet.
The thanksgiving for shelter and safety in the fearful storm found an
echo in every heart; and when he prayed for their two companions that
they might be returned to their friends in safety and with the
determination to be true and noble boys hereafter, Chester felt like
uttering a loud amen.
The sun was shining brightly again, and every trace of fog was gone, but
the wind was still blowing, and the sea a perfect witch's caldron.
After breakfast the bedding was taken out to dry, and anchored with
large stones to the ledge to keep it from flying away.
The tents were once more pitched, and they all felt that with the return
of the sun there was also a return of pleasure in camp-life.
Even Jonas seemed in a fair way towards good-nature again, and that made
them all more cheerful.
During the fog-storm he had been crabbed enough; and Joe said if he saw
a boy come within five yards of the cook-tent he would growl like a
bear.
He was improving now, and when one of the boys suggested doughnuts for a
variety, Jonas announced that the next job he "tackled" should be to fry
doughnuts.[#]
[#] Small, roundish cakes.
"Twisted fellows, Jonas," suggested Joe.
"Yes, twisted."
"And will you give us one while they are hot?"
"Ye-es; go 'long with you, every one of ye."
*CHAPTER VII.*
*THE WRECK.*
John and Jerry were late coming with the milk, and they were in a state
of great excitement.
"Did you hear about the wreck?"
"Wreck!" cried the boys in chorus, as they gathered around the
news-bearers.
"Yes, a wreck."
"Where?" was the eager query.
"Right on that reef near the surf-bell."
"Tell us about it!"--"Anybody lost?"
"Yes, one fellow. Father's been talking with 'em. He can't but just
make out what they say. She's just keeled up on that ledge. I tell you
she looks awful!"
"She? Is there a woman there?"
"I don't know."
"Oh, he means the vessel when he says 'she,'" exclaimed Frank Furman.
"Wasn't it an awful storm?"--"Wasn't it!"
"I tell you we was scared, Jerry and me! I thought sure the old
lighthouse was going over, and our house, too. Everything was creakin'
and groanin', and the surf was flyin' up against the windows."
"Father stayed by the lantern all night; he afraid the light might go
out," added Jerry. "We didn't know nothin' about the wreck till
daylight."
"John, tell me what kind of a vessel it is," said Joe, pale with some
sudden apprehension.
"It's a schooner."
"Were they fishermen, do you think?"
"I think so. They are trying to get her off before she breaks up. They
think if they get her over to the Cape she can be mended."
Joe had already darted away to Mr. Bernard's tent, and rapping on the
canvas, he asked hurriedly, "Mr. Bernard, may I come in?"
"Come."
"O Mr. Bernard, John and Jerry are here, and they have been telling us
about a wreck over there on the ledge."
Mr. Bernard threw down his book and listened.
"One fellow was lost. The boys think it was a fishing-vessel. What if
it should be the _Una_, Mr. Bernard?"
The teacher arose hastily and put on his hat.
"Did they know the name of the vessel?"
"I didn't ask, Mr. Bernard; I didn't dare to," answered Joe, still very
pale.
"I will go over there at once."
"Oh, may I go too?"