CHAPTER XVII
ALMOST RUN DOWN
It grew dark rapidly and the night fell on three lonely, wet, hungryboys, rolling along in a disabled boat under what was surely one of thequeerest rigs ever devised. It answered its purpose, though, and underher "jury mast" the Flying Fish actually made some headway through thewater.
None of the boys said much, and Tubby, under the cover of the darkness,tightened his capacious belt. It spoke volumes for his Boy Scouttraining that, though he probably felt the pangs of hunger as much oreven more keenly than the others, he made no complaint. Hiram, thesecond-class scout, complained a bit at first, but soon quieted downunder Merritt's stern looks; as for the latter, as corporal of theEagle Patrol, it was his duty to try to keep as cheerful as possible;which, under the circumstances, was about as hard a task as could wellbe imagined.
The eyes of all three were kept strained ahead for some sign of alight, for they had been so tossed about in the squall that all senseof direction had been lost, and they had no compass aboard, which initself was a piece of carelessness.
Suddenly, after about an hour of "going it blind" in this fashion,young Hiram gave a shout.
"A light, a light!"
"Where?" demanded Tubby and Merritt sharply.
"Off there," cried the lad, pointing to the left, over the port side ofthe boat.
Both the elder lads gazed sharply.
"That's not the direction in which land would lie," mused Tubby.
"The light's pretty high up, too, isn't it?" suggested Merritt. "Itmight be a lighthouse. We may have been blown farther than we thought."
Tubby offered no opinion for a few seconds, but his ordinarily roundand smiling face grew grave. A sudden apprehension had flashed intohis mind.
"Tell me, Merritt," he said, "can you see any other lights?"
"No," replied Merritt, after peering with half closed eyes at the whitelight.
"I can," suddenly shouted young Hiram.
"You can?"
"Yes; some distance below the white light I can see a green one to theright and a red one on the left."
"Shades of Father Neptune!" groaned Tubby. "It's just as I thought,Merritt--that light yonder is a steamer's mast lantern, and the factthat Hiram can see both her port and starboard lamps beneath shows thatshe's coming right for us."
This was alarming enough. Without lanterns, without the means ofmaking any noise sufficiently loud to attract the attention of those onthe approaching vessel, the occupants of the Plying Fish were in aboutas serious a predicament as one could imagine. To make matters worse,the wind began to drop and come in puffs which only urged the FlyingFish ahead slowly. Tubby made a rapid mental calculation, and decidedthat hardly anything short of a miracle could save them from being rundown, unless the steamer saw them and changed her course.
"Can't we shout and make them hear us?" asked Hiram in an alarmedvoice. He saw from the troubled faces of both the elder lads thatsomething serious indeed was the matter.
"We might try it," responded Tubby, with a bitter shrug. "But it'sabout as much use as a mouth organ in a symphony orchestra would be.Better get on the life belts."
With hands that trembled with the sense of impending disaster, thethree boys strapped on the cork jackets.
"Now all shout together," said Merritt, when this was done.
Standing erect, the three young castaways placed their handsfunnel-wise to their mouths and roared out together:
"Ship ahoy! St-eam-er a-hoy!"
They were alarmed and not ashamed to admit it.
"No good," said Tubby, after they had roared themselves hoarse. "Whenshe strikes us, jump over the starboard bow and dive as deep as youcan. If you don't, the propellers are liable to catch us."
It was a grim prospect, and no wonder the boys grew white and theirfaces strained as the impending peril bore down on them.
They could now see that she was a large vessel--a liner, to judge fromthe rows of lighted portholes on her steep black sides. Her bow lightsgleamed like the eye of some monster intent on devouring the FlyingFish and her occupants. On and on she came. The air trembled with thevibration of her mighty engines, and a great white "'bone" foamed up ather sharp prow.
Not one of the boys spoke as the vessel came nearer and nearer,although it speedily grew evident that unless a wind sprang up or thelookout saw them, it was inevitable that they would be cut in twoamidships.
"Remember what I said," warned Tubby, in a strange, strained voice."Dive deep and stay tinder as long as you can."
And now the great vessel seemed scarcely more than two or three boatlengths from the tiny cockleshell on which she was bearing down. As amatter of fact, though, her towering bulk made her appear much nearerthan she actually was.
"Can't we do anything, Merritt?" gasped Hiram, with chattering teeth."We might try shouting once more," suggested Tubby in a voice thatquivered in spite of his efforts to keep it steady.
"All together now--come on!"
"Ship ahoy! You'll run us down! St-eam-er a-hoy!"
Suddenly there were signs of confusion on the bow of the big vessel.Men could be seen running about and waving their arms.
"By hookey, they've seen us!" breathed Merritt, hardly daring tobelieve it, however.
The others were speechless with suspense.
Suddenly from the bow of the oncoming steamer a great fan-shaped ray ofdazzling light shot out and enveloped the boys and their boat in itsbewildering radiance.
"Hard over, hard over!" the boys could hear the lookout roaring, andthe command rang hoarsely back along the decks to the wheelhouse.
Slowly, very slowly, as if reluctant to give up her prey, the bow ofthe mighty liner swung off, and the boys were safe.
"Look out for the wash," warned Merritt, as the great black bulk,pierced with hundreds of glowing portholes, ploughed regally by them,her deck crowded with curious passengers. A voice shouted down fromthe bridge:
"What in blazing sea serpents are you doing out here in that marine oilstove?"
The boys made no attempt to reply. They had all they could do to hangon, as the Flying Fish danced about like a drifting cork in the wash ofthe great vessel. They could see, however, that several of herpassengers were clustered at her stern rail, gazing wonderingly down atthem in great perplexity, no doubt, as to what manner of craft it wasthat they had so narrowly escaped sending to the bottom. For had thevessel even grazed the Flying Fish, the small boat would have beenannihilated without those on board the liner even feeling a tremor. Itwould have been just such a tragedy as happens frequently to thefishing dories on the foggy Newfoundland banks.
"Wh-ew!" gasped Merritt, sinking down on a locker. "That was a narrowescape if you like it!"
"I don't like it," remarked Tubby sententiously, mopping his forehead,on which beads of cold perspiration had stood out while theirdestruction had seemed inevitable. So thoroughly unnerved were thelads, in fact, by their experience that it was some time before theycould do anything more than sit limply on the lockers while the FlyingFish rolled aimlessly with an uncontrolled helm.
"Come on," said Tubby at length; "we've got to rouse ourselves. In thefirst place, I've got an idea," he went on briskly. "I've beenthinking over that gasoline stoppage, and the more I think of it themore I am inclined to believe that there's something queer about it.It's worth looking into, anyhow."
"You mean you think there may be some fuel in the tank, after all?"asked Merritt, looking up.
"It's possible. Have you tried the little valve forward of thecarburetor?"
"Why, no," rejoined Merritt; "but I hardly think--"
"It wouldn't be the first time a carburetor had fouled, particularlyafter what we went through in that squall," remarked Tubby. "It'sworth trying, anyhow."
He bent over the valve he had referred to, which was in the gasolinefeed pipe, just forward of the carburetor, and placed there primarilyfor draining the tank when it was necessary.
"L
ook here!" he yelled, with a sudden shout of excitement. "No," hecried the next moment, "I don't want to waste it--but when I opened thevalve a stream of gasoline came out. There's plenty of it. Thatstoppage is in the carburetor. Oh, what a bunch of idiots we've been!"
"Better sound the tank," suggested Merritt; "what came out of the valvemight just be an accumulation in the pipe."
"Not much," rejoined the other, "it came out with too much force forthat, I tell you. It was flowing from the tank, all right."
"We'll soon find out," proclaimed Merritt. "Give me the sounding stickout of that locker, Hiram."
Armed with the stick, Merritt rapidly unscrewed the cap of the fueltank and plunged the sounder into it.
"There's quite a lot of gasoline in there yet," he exclaimed, withsparkling eyes, as he withdrew and felt the wet end of the instrument.
The carburetor was rapidly adjusted. The rough tossing about theFlying Fish had received had jammed the needle valve, but that was all.Presently all was in readiness to get under way once more with thelittle boat's proper motive power. The "jury rig" was speedilydismantled Merritt swung the flywheel over two or three times, and awelcome "chug, chug!" responded.
"Hurray! she's working," cried Hiram.
"As well as ever," responded Merritt. "Now for the shore. By theway," he broke off in a dismayed tone, "where is the shore?"
"I know now," rejoined Tubby in a confident tone. "Off there to theright. You see, that steamer was hugging the coast preparatory toheading seaward--at least, I'm pretty sure she was, and that would putthe shore on her port side, or on our starboard."
They chugged off in the direction Tubby indicated, and before long ajoyful cry from Hiram announced the sudden appearance of lights.
"What are they?" asked Merritt.
"Don't know--they look like bonfires," rejoined the other lad. "Iwonder if we have been lucky enough to pick up Topsail Island?"
As they drew nearer the lads soon saw that it was the island that theywere approaching, and that the lights they had seen were campfiresignited by order of the anxious young Patrol leader to guide them back.
In a short time they had anchored the Flying Fish opposite the camp,and jumped into the dinghy left at her moorings when they embarked.
"A fine scare you've given us," cried Rob, as they landed and flungdown their afternoon's catch. "We were afraid for a time that you werelost in that black squall--it blew two of our tents down, and we weremighty anxious about you, I can tell you."
"You did not alarm our folks?" asked Hiram anxiously.
"No, I thought that it would be best to wait. Somehow, I thought you'dturn up safe. Where on earth have you been and what has happened? Youlook as pale as three ghosts."
"Towed to sea by a shark--caught in a squall--almost run down by aliner--and so hungry we can't talk now," sputtered out Tubbycomprehensively.
"All right; come on up to the fire and get dried out and pitch into thegrub."
After such a meal as it may be imagined the young scouts indulged in,they told their whole yarn of their adventures to the listening Patrol.A short time after they concluded--so long had it taken to relateeverything and answer all questions--the mournful call of "Taps"sounded and it was time to turn in. Little Digby alone, who was to dosentry service, remained on duty.
Merritt's dreams were a strange jumble. It seemed to him that he wasbeing towed to sea on the back of a huge shark, by a big liner with arow of blazing portholes that winked at him like facetious eyes.Suddenly, just as it seem he was about to slip off the marine monster'sslippery back, he thought he heard a loud cry of "Help, scouts!"
So vivid was the dream and so real the cry that he awoke trembling, andlistened intently while peering out through the tent flap.
There was no sound, however, but the ripple of the waves on the beachand the "hoot hoot" of an owl somewhere back in the woods on the island.
"Funny," mused the boy, as he turned over and dozed off again, "thatcertainly sounded loud enough to have been a real, sure enough call forhelp."
Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol Page 17