LOST OVERBOARD!
"This is the worst yet!"
Tom fairly shouted the words at Jack, who stood by him on the bridge
of the storm-tossed _Sea Ranger_. The younger lad had just come from
below, where he had deluged the engines with oil. He had also gone
over them carefully, although the way the little craft was pitching
made the job a difficult one. But Jack knew that the safety of the
boat might depend on the way the engines kept at work.
"I never saw anything like it," yelled Jack, forming his hands into a
funnel to make his voice carry. "Is it letting up at all?"
"Not a bit. It is worse, if anything."
Tom peered into the gloom ahead. But he could see nothing but angry
breakers, their white tops whipped off by the furious wind and sent
scattering as they formed. Both boys wore oilskins and sou'westers.
The spray had drenched them till their garments shone in the gleam of
the binnacle lamp.
"Better switch on the side and head lights," observed Tom presently.
He turned a button, and the red port light and its green companion on
the starboard side were presently gleaming out. Above them, on the
short mast with which the _Sea Ranger_ was equipped, there beamed a
white light, and another lantern of the same variety now shone out
astern. All were lighted by electricity, furnished from a dynamo in
the engine room, so that no matter how hard the wind blew, or how
high the spray flew, there was no danger of their being extinguished.
"I feel a little better now," said Tom, after a while. "There's less
danger of anything running into us in this smother. What are the
professor and Sandy doing?"
"Trying to get a cup of hot coffee, but not succeeding very well.
There's too much motion below, to stand still without gripping on to
something."
"Are we keeping a straight course?"
It was Jack who spoke, after another interval in which the wind
howled and the waves arose still more menacingly.
"As straight as I can steer her in this. I tell you, it's hard work
to hold the wheel at all."
Indeed, every time a wave buffeted the _Sea Ranger's_ rudder, it
appeared as if the steering wheel was about to be jerked out of Tom's
hand. But the elder Dacre boy possessed muscles well-hardened by all
kinds of athletic games, and he stubbornly held the laboring craft to
her course, despite the storm.
"I'll go below and oil up again," announced Jack presently.
He clawed his way across the bridge and vanished into the engine
room. It was a wonderful contrast down there, in the warm, dry motor
room, with the brightly polished machinery, working and moving in as
rhythmic and unconcerned a fashion as if it was a summer's afternoon
without. Incandescent globes made the place as bright as day, and
the brass and steel flashed as it rose and fell with hardly any noise.
Oil-can in hand, Jack went his rounds. He poked the long spout in
here and there, and then paused to wipe his hands on a bit of waste.
"I wish we were out of this," he was saying. "I wish we----"
There came a sudden, inexplicable jar throughout the whole structure
of the _Sea Ranger_. Jack was flung flat on his back. The engines
began to roar and race furiously. Every beam and rivet in her frame
seemed to vibrate.
"Something terrible has happened," was the thought that flashed
through the lad's mind, as he picked himself up.
He rushed out on deck as soon as he could collect his scattered
senses. The wind was still screaming angrily, and the riotous sea
was leaping all about the _Sea Ranger_.
But above the turmoil of the storm, Jack caught a startling cry that
came through the darkness.
"Help!"
"Tom's voice!" exclaimed the lad.
He stumbled across the heaving deck and rushed up the two steps that
led to the bridge where he had left his brother at the wheel. His
pulses were throbbing wildly. The next moment, he, too, uttered a
cry.
The bridge was vacant! Tom had vanished!
"Help! Help!"
The shout came once more. But it was fainter this time. Jack gazed
about him despairingly. Tom was overboard, that much was certain.
But how had it happened? How----?
"Put your helm over there!" roared a voice out of the blackness--a
harsh, hoarse voice, that cut the storm like a vessel's siren.
Jack, only half-conscious of what he was doing, spun the spokes over.
He was just in time. Dead ahead of their craft a larger vessel
loomed up for an instant. She carried no lights, and a glimpse was
all Jack had of her. But it gave him a clue as to what had occurred.
In the darkness they must have collided with the lightless craft, and
only his quickness in getting the helm over had averted a second
collision, which might have proved disastrous.
"What is it? What has happened?" came a voice behind him.
It was the professor. The binnacle light shone on his gaunt, alarmed
features. Close behind him pressed Sandy.
"Hoots, toots!" exclaimed the Scotch lad. "What was the gr-r-r-r-and
bo-o-omp?"
"We collided with a vessel without lights," gasped Jack,
"and--and----" his voice choked up, "Tom's gone."
"Gone!" exclaimed the professor. "Overboard, you mean?"
Jack mournfully replied in the affirmative. But he launched into
action, too.
The switch that controlled the _Sea Ranger's_ powerful searchlight
was handy to the wheel. A quick twist of his wrist, and a white
shaft of light from the powerful reflector cut through the night like
a scimitar of flame.
With his hand on the controlling lever, Jack swept the beams hither
and thither through the blackness. In the meantime, Sandy had cut
loose one of the two patent buoys that were lashed to the little
craft's bridge. He cast it out from the _Sea Ranger's_ side with a
powerful impetus.
As it struck the water, the dampness reached the bottle of chemicals
attached to the life-saving contrivance. Instantaneously a dull,
ghostly glare lit up the surrounding waves. The light was blue and
uncanny, and rendered the scene still more disheartening. As the
light struck the tossing waves, it turned them to a steely, unearthly
bluish hue.
But if Tom were swimming anywhere near at hand he would be able to
see the buoy and strike out for it.
"Look! Look there!" cried the professor, suddenly pointing off into
the blue glare of the chemical buoy.
The others hastily glanced in the direction indicated, and, for a
second, they could see a head bobbing about on the wave crests.
"Turn the ship ar-oond!" bellowed Sandy.
"I daren't. If we got into the trough of those seas, we'd be swamped
in an instant."
Jack spoke the truth. To have attempted to turn the _Sea Ranger_ in
the sea that was running might have meant disaster, swift and certain.
"There comes the other craft!" cried Jack suddenly.
As he spoke, he saw a large tug, pitching and heaving fearfully in
the heavy sea, come wallowing into the circle of light cast by the
chemical buoy. Several men were on her decks. Jack could see that
one of them held a line, which he threw out toward the bobbing head
on the wave crests.
With the idea of aiding the men on the tug in their work, Jack
switched the searchlight over toward them. Its rays fell on the
craft just in time for those on board the _Sea Ranger_ to see Tom's
limp form being hauled on board.
The brilliant rays of the searchlight lit up the faces of Tom's
rescuers as plain as day. As it fell on the wild, dripping
countenances of the tug-boat men, Jack gave a sudden start.
"Great Scott!" he burst out. "Can it be possible?"
"Hoots! Can what be possible, mon?" queried Sandy.
"Why, look! Look there!"
"At what, pray? I see that they've rescued poor Tom."
"No--I mean look at that man--the one there by the pilot-house. And
the other beside him!"
"What in the name of the haunted kirk of Alloway are ye speekin'
aboot, noo'?" inquired the Scotch boy.
"Why, those men. It's Dampier and Captain Walstein, just as sure as
we are on this bridge--and--and Tom is in their power!"