A sudden sharp puff of wind, followed by a heavier dip than usual on the
part of the dismantled hulk, apprised the boy that both breeze and sea
were increasing. Putting aside, for the moment, by a brave effort, his
heart sickness, Harry ran to the rail and peered over the side. The
motor boat was careering gallantly along by the side of her big consort,
and the boy was glad to note that the painter still held, despite the
strain.
But Harry knew, from his examination the previous night, that it would
be useless to try to escape by the motor craft. She was disabled beyond
hope of repair, unless he could get another spark plug. Having made sure
the motor craft was all right, Harry returned to the bow and sat down to
think the situation over.
It would have been a trying one for a man to face, let alone a lad; but
Harry's numerous adventures had given him a power of calm thought beyond
his years, and he managed to marshal his ideas into some sort of shape
as he crouched under the bow bulwarks.
"Evidently the _Betsy Jane_ was caught by the tide, when it turned, and
carried out to sea," he thought, "and then, when the wind got up, she
drifted still faster. I wonder if her mooring rope broke or if it was
cut--guess I'll take a look."
The boy dragged inboard the end of the mooring line that still hung over
the bow. One look at it was enough. The clean cut strands showed
conclusively that it had been severed, just above the water line, by a
sharp knife. The fact that the Daniels could not know that any one would
come on board after they slashed the line did not make their act any
less heinous in Harry's eyes. It had been their deliberate intention to
set the schooner adrift, and they had succeeded only too well in their
act of spite.
"Whatever will they be thinking on the island when they discover all
this?" thought Harry with a low groan. "They'll imagine that I'm dead,
or at least that some fatal accident has befallen me, and, worst of all,
they have no boat to use to reach the mainland. They are just as much
prisoners as I am."
Sharp pangs of hunger now began to assail the lad, and he recollected,
with a thankful heart, that on board the motor boat there were the
remains of a lunch they had taken ashore with them on their expedition
the previous day. There was also a keg of water. Harry lost no time in
descending the gangway and making his way to the locker where the food
had been stored. First, however, he made a foray on the water keg.
Taking out the stopper he found that it was only half full, but he
slaked his thirst gratefully, taking care to use as small a quantity of
the fluid as possible. He knew that before long the water might be
precious indeed.
In the locker he found the remnants of the lunch. As he consumed the
scraps of bread and cheese, and a small hunk of corned beef, he recalled
with what light hearts they had fallen to the meal of which he was now
devouring the remains. The recollection almost overcame him. With a
strong effort the boy choked back a sob and formed a grim determination
not to dwell upon his miserable situation more than was possible. He
felt that the main thing was to keep a clear head.
There was some spare rope on board the hulk, and with this Harry made
the fastenings of the launch more secure, leading one end of the rope on
board the schooner itself, and making it fast to a cleat. He felt that
the craft would be more safe if attached thus than would have been the
case had he depended on the gangway alone.
This done, he took a look about him. He had had a vague hope that he
might sight a ship of some sort, but the ocean was empty as a desert.
Not a sail or a smudge of smoke marred the horizon. All this time the
wind had been steadily freshening, and Harry judged that the schooner
must be drifting before it quite fast. The inclined superstructure
naturally added to her "windage" and made her go before the gale more
rapidly. The sea, too, was piling up in great, glistening, green water
rows, which looked formidable indeed. But so far the _Betsy Jane_ had
wallowed along right gallantly, only shipping a shower of spray
occasionally when a big sea struck her obliquely on the bow.
"If only I had plenty of food and water," thought Harry, "this would be
nothing more than a good bit of adventure, but----"
In accordance with his resolution not to dwell on the more serious
aspects of his predicament he dismissed this side of the case from his
mind. But as the day wore on, and he grew intolerably thirsty, the
thought of what might be his fate, if he did not fall in with some
vessel, beset his mind more and more, to the exclusion of all else. In
the afternoon, as closely as he could judge the time, he took another
drink from the fast-diminishing supply in the keg. He noticed, with an
unpleasant shock, that the fluid was growing alarmingly lower. Before he
took the draught he had cleaned up the remaining crumbs left in the
locker, and was now absolutely without food.
The rest of that afternoon he passed watching the empty sea for some
sign of a ship, but not a trace of one could he discover. Utterly
disheartened he watched the sun set in a blaze of crimson and gold. The
sunset lay behind him, and Harry knew by this that he was drifting east
at a rapid rate. Just how rapid he had, of course, no means of
calculating. Of one thing he was thankful--the sea had not increased, and
the wind appeared to have fallen considerably with the departure of
daylight.
"Surely," thought the boy, "I must have drifted on the track of ocean
vessels by this time. I know there's a line to Halifax, and another to
Portland, besides the coasters."
With this thought came another. What if he should be run down during the
night? The idea sent a shudder through his scantily clothed form. He
knew that derelicts are often the cause of marine disasters, and during
the dark hours the hulk might invite such a fate if he did not take
steps to guard against it.
Accordingly he lit his lantern and hung it in the underpinning of the
inclined superstructure.
"At least they can see that," he thought, as he completed the hanging of
his warning light.
Then, having done all he well could under the circumstances, Harry cast
himself down in the lee of the weather bulwarks and tried to sleep. But
in his scanty attire he was far too cold to do aught but lie and shiver
till his teeth chattered. He determined to pass the rest of the night
below, and once more sought a couch in the empty bunk. But sleep was a
long time coming. Tired, excited and hungry as the boy was, he could not
compose himself to slumber. Ten or a dozen times he started up and ran
to the deck, thinking that he had heard the distant beat of some
vessel's engines. But each time it proved a false alarm.
At length tired nature asserted herself, and he sank to sleep in good
earnest. When he awakened it was daylight, and there was an odd feeling
about the motion of the _Betsy Jane_. She seemed to have ceased her
rolling and pitching, and was almost steady in the water. Suddenly there
came a jarring crash that almost threw Harry out of the bunk.
Much startled, he ran on deck, and found, to his astonishment, that the
vessel lay right off an island. Seemingly she had grounded on a reef of
rocks stretching out from the island itself. At any rate, as the waves
rocked her she gave a jarring, crunching bump with each pitch of her
hull. The island appeared to be a small one, and in general appearance
was not unlike Brig Island. In fact, at first Harry had thought that in
some magical way the _Betsy Jane_ had drifted back to that small speck
of land. But a second glance showed him that the island off which the
dismantled hull had grounded differed in many essentials from the one he
had left. Far to the westward, about twenty miles as well as the boy
could judge, lay a dim streak of dark blue that Harry guessed was the
mainland. But for all the good it did him it might have been a hundred
miles removed.
Harry was still gazing at the island and wondering how he could reach it
before the _Betsy Jane_ pounded herself to pieces on the rocks, when he
started violently. The island was not, as he had supposed,
uninhabited--at least, he had caught sight of a swirl of blue smoke
rising from among the trees on its highest part. This meant help,
companionship and food. An involuntary cry of joy rose to the boy's
lips, which the next instant turned to a groan as he looked over the
side of the schooner and saw that the reef on which she had struck was
much too far out from the shore for him to try to swim the distance,
even if a roaring, racing tide would not have made it suicidal to
attempt the feat.
"Unless I can attract the attention of whoever lives there by shouting,
I'm as badly off as I was before," exclaimed Harry, in a voice made
quavery by panic.