CHAPTER XI
THE WRATH OF THE STORM
For a few minutes his eyes rolled wildly as he viewed the tumbling wasteof waters, but he soon overcame his dismay far enough to stagger over toBenton with the pot of coffee. The boys made their way to the sameplace, and the hot black liquid gave them renewed courage. Then thenegro darted back to his galley, and presently reappeared with a tinpail full of sandwiches, which he sheltered from the spray under hisragged coat. These the boys thankfully devoured, after which they feltin better shape to face the perils of the night that was now fallingrapidly over the tossing waste.
Benton had hoped that the storm would exhaust itself almost as quicklyas it had arisen, but, on the contrary, as night fell it seemed toincrease in fury. It was a fearsome thing to see the pale sheen of agreat roller looming up over the stern, and the boys would hold theirbreaths, expecting every second to have some watery mountains comecrashing down on their little craft and carry it to the bottom. At timesgreat seas did come aboard, entirely engulfing them until the ship shookitself free and rose, shuddering, to the next blow.
Through it all Benton clung doggedly to the wheel, half smothered by theflying surges, but sticking gamely to his post. Phil fought his way aftat last, and offered to relieve him, but Benton refused to give up thewheel.
"I'll hang on a while longer," he yelled, "You go forward into the bows,Phil, and keep a lookout. Heaven only knows where we're driving to, andit will be a miracle if we miss some of the reefs and islands aroundhere. All I can do is keep us headed before the waves, and leave therest to Providence."
Phil shouted a few words of encouragement, which it is doubtful ifBenton heard above the fiendish uproar of the storm, and groped his wayforward, clutching desperately at anything that came to hand to keepfrom being swept overboard. Most of the rail had been demolished, sothat there was nothing to save any of them from being swept over theside if they once lost their hold on some securely fastened object.
At length Phil reached the bows, and wedged himself in between the sideand the capstan, straining his eyes through the inky blackness. Soon itbegan to rain in torrents, but this made little difference to any of theparty, as they were already soaked to the skin and had been for manyhours.
Swept by rain and sea, and almost deafened by the howling of the wind,Phil peered ahead, striving to pierce the murky darkness. Long ridges ofwhite foam hissed by, so close that he could dip his hand in as the bowdropped into some boiling eddy. High above all else rose the booming andwhistling of the wind, and this kept him from hearing an even greatersound until suddenly he saw a huge spout of foam not a hundred feetahead of the ship, and at the same time heard the menacing roar ofbreakers.
With a shout that was lost in the uproar of the elements, he sprang tohis feet and raced aft, forgetful of the seas washing across the deck.But by the time he reached Benton, the latter had also seen the ominousspout of foam, and the roar of the reef was loud in their ears as theydrove toward it under the pitiless urge of sea and gale. To change theircourse was out of the question then, and their only hope lay in drivingthrough some passage in the reef.
Now the reef was almost under their bows, and they all held theirbreath, waiting for the shock that seemed inevitable. On every sidegreat waves leaped and hammered on the reef, spouting fifty feet intothe air in sheets of foam that fell back booming onto the deck of thevessel. The surf was tremendous beyond description, and the Fleeting waspicked up and whirled about like a toy. A giant roller reared its crestover them, picked them up in its mighty grasp, and hurled them towardthe spouting inner reef.
With a crashing impact the vessel struck--shivered--rose--and struckagain, with a sickening crunch of riven timbers. Then with the last ofits expiring strength the tremendous wave smashed them clear over thereef, while a flood of roaring water tore everything living from thedecks and hurled them toward the beach some three hundred feet distant.
Lucky it was for them that they were all strong swimmers. Battered anddazed, they found themselves in the lesser surf that beat upon a sandybeach, and after a desperate, choking struggle, Phil and Benton draggedthemselves out upon the sand. A pale dawn was glimmering in the east,and by the sickly light they could make out black dots still strugglingin the raging surf, and they knew that these must be their comrades.Almost exhausted themselves, they hesitated not a moment, but rushedback into the combing waves and deadly undertow to rescue the others.
Time and again they were swept from their feet and had to struggledesperately to regain the beach. The first one they pulled out was Dick,and, although more dead than alive, he immediately turned to and helped.Tom came next, still swimming feebly, but overwhelmed again and again bythe breaking waves. There remained then only Bimbo, who could not swim,but was clinging desperately to a floating spar. As often as a wavewashed him toward shore, the powerful undertow drew him out again, andhe was fast weakening under the strain.
Under Benton's directions they all joined hands, thus forming a livingchain, and then battled their way into the surf once more. Phil was theoutermost, and as the negro was swept shoreward on a big breaker, Philstretched out a hand to him. The faithful darky just managed to graspthe outstretched hand as the undertow caught the spar and sucked itseaward. With a tremendous effort Benton, who was nearest the beach,exerted all his remaining strength, and they all staggered shoreward outof the inferno of breaking waves and clutching undertow. With a finaldesperate effort they shook themselves clear, and dropped, panting andexhausted, onto the wet sand of the beach.
For some time they lay scarcely able to move, but at length theirstrength began to return, and they struggled to their feet and took noteof their surroundings.
Some hundred yards from the beach lay the wreck of their vessel. When ithad struck the reef the mast had gone overboard, and the erstwhile trimship was now a melancholy sight, with the waves breaking over her deckat short intervals. Fortunately, the outer reef broke the force of therollers, so that the ship seemed in no immediate danger of smashing up,and they resolved to get as many of her stores as possible ashore assoon as the storm abated. But at present there was little they could doin that quarter, and they turned their attention to the island uponwhich they were stranded.
The beach was perhaps a hundred yards wide. At its landward edge werelow sand hills covered with coarse grass, and beyond this rose the talltrees and tangled creepers of a dense jungle. Beyond this again the landrose steeply into a series of ridges, and as the little party gazed thesame idea seemed to strike them all at the same time, and they looked ateach other in startled wonder. Was it possible that an adverse Fate wasrelenting toward them?
Without a word Benton drew the old Spaniard's map from the waterproofbelt in which he always carried it, and they eagerly compared it withthe jagged outlines before them. There were the same peaks before theireyes that the old pirate had seen and noted two hundred years before,and as they traced the unmistakable similarity the boys gave a shout ofexultation. By what seemed little short of a miracle they had been castupon Sawtooth Island!
But after their first feeling of exultation had passed, they realizedthat they would be as well off on any other island, unless, indeed, theycould salvage some of their diving apparatus from the sunken vessel.Their immediate need was food and shelter, and without loss of time theyset themselves to finding both. Thousands of clams and mussels had beenthrown up on the beach, and they each gathered a quantity of these andate them raw. Then, feeling much stronger, they set out to look for somekind of shelter from the heavy tropical rain that was still falling intorrents. There was obviously no shelter on the beach, so theyapproached the forest that hemmed it on three sides.
But when they reached the belt of dense vegetation, they were met bysuch a tangle of vines and undergrowth as defied penetration without theaid of knives and axes. They skirted slowly along the edge, looking forsome opening, and at length Bimbo's roving eyes detected the meresttrace of a path
through the trees.
"Dar's a place we kin get in!" he shouted, and raced for the opening.But when he reached it he very prudently waited for the others to arrivebefore he ventured in.
They had to walk single file, and even at that it was slow going, as thepath was encumbered by fallen trees, and great vines were festoonedacross it like ropes, and they had to duck under these to make anyprogress at all. They had almost decided to give it up for the presentand return to the beach, when suddenly the path widened out into a smallclearing, and they stopped to look about them.
At one edge of the clearing towered a pile of great boulders, rising sosteeply that even the rank jungle vegetation had not been able to lodgeon them. At the base of this granite mass there was a heavy growth ofbushes and creepers, but from experience the boys knew that where therewere rocks there was very apt to be a cave, and their need of shelterwas urgent, as they had not had dry clothing on them for almosttwenty-four hours, and were chilled to the bone.
They approached the rocks, and searched for some sign of a crevice thatmight protect them from the sullen tropical downpour.
Phil was the first to meet with success. As he tore up a big bush by theroots, he could see a black opening in the rock, and his shout broughtthe others to the spot.
The Radio Boys Under the Sea; or, The Hunt for Sunken Treasure Page 11