Frank Merriwell's Athletes: or, The Boys Who Won. Standish Burt L.
he was ready and anxious for a “scrap,” and Diamond thought better of it.
The rolling swell proved decidedly trying for some of the boys, and Diamond was the first to get sick. In fact, he had begun to feel ill when he grumbled about shortening sail.
“Dot poy vas opeyin’ der Pible,” grinned Hans, pointing to Jack, who was leaning over the rail. “Der Pible says, ‘Cast your pread der vater on,’ und py shimminy! he vas doin’ dot, ain’d id!”
Then the Dutch boy opened wide his mouth and laughed heartily. Suddenly he pressed his hands to his stomach and stopped laughing, a queer, troubled look coming to his fat face.
“Shimminy!” he muttered. “I vonder vot der madder mit me vas, don’d id? I nefer felt so queer all mein life in.”
Then, as the Greyhound fell away into the trough of the sea, with a peculiar sinking motion, he gasped:
“Dot subber vot I ate don’d seem mit me to agree. I pet you your life dot canned chickens vas sboilt. I peliefed all der time dot chickens vas a hen, but id vas der first hen I efer seen as didn’t vant to set.”
“Begorra! it’s saysack ye are alriddy,” chuckled Barney. “You’ll be kapin’ company wid Diamond dirictly.”
“Yaw,” gasped Hans. “I pelief you, Parney.”
Then he made a rush for the rail, and followed Jack’s example.
Darkness came on, creeping in a blue haze across the water. Shortly after nightfall there was a faint, weird moaning away on the surface of the sea, which glowed like liquid fire under the rail of the yacht.
“It’s the auld nick av a blow we’ll have,” declared Barney to Frank. “Oi don’t loike it at all, at all.”
“You like it quite as well as I do,” admitted Merriwell. “I am not familiar with these waters, and I do not fancy the idea of piling up on lea shore.”
The moaning arose to a shrill cry, and then the wind came with a sudden rush, catching the Greyhound and knocking her on beam ends in a twinkling.
Frank assisted Barney at the helm, shouting:
“Hold fast, everybody!”
The little vessel righted, and then away she leaped, laying hard over to port, with the rail awash.
Like a frightened race horse the Greyhound sped away, with the wild wind beating upon her and shrieking through her rigging. The mast bent with a snapping sound.
“Ease off the sheet!” shouted Frank. “We’re in danger of losing that stick, and we’ll be finished if we do!”
So the boat was allowed to run free, which eased the strain somewhat.
Now the wind was shrieking as if all the demons of the deep had been set loose in a moment and were making an assault on the little yacht that had been caught in the midst of the tempest.
At nightfall Frank had taken precaution to see that the proper lights were set, green to starboard and red to port.
The sky was covered with flying masses of clouds, between which the cold stars blinked and vanished, like the flashes of guns seen through masses of rolling smoke.
After a little the moon rose and leaped up into the mass of clouds, as if eager to be in the midst of the wild delirium of the reeling sky.
The Greyhound leaped along the crests of the waves, plunged into the depths of the watery valleys, and tore her way through the seething, boiling sea.
Frank was watching her with the greatest anxiety, wondering what sort of storm boat she would prove to be.
Diamond, Browning, Hans and Toots got below. Rattleton and Hodge remained on deck with Frank and Barney.
When the moon shot out through the clouds the boys could see a great waste of water heaving and plunging all around them, like a sea of snow.
But the moon appeared and disappeared in such an erratic manner that it was extremely irritating, making the whole world seem a place of troubled shadows and awesome shapes.
“It’s dead lucky we reefed down for this, Barney,” cried Frank, placing his lips close to the Irish lad’s ear.
“Roight ye are, me b’y,” Mulloy called back, cheerfully. “It’s a good bit av a braze she’s blowing now, an’ Oi think there’s more comin’.”
“Will she stand, it?”
“Av it ain’t too sthiff. It’s a roight tight litthle boat she is, an’ all we nade is to kape off shore an’ let her go.”
Beginning to feel satisfied with the behavior of the yacht, Frank felt a wild thrill of delight in the fury of the tempest. He knew something about managing a large boat himself, and he felt confidence in Barney’s qualifications as a sailor.
The moon leaped from the edge of one cloud to the edge of another, as if it, too, were running a race across the sky and taking all sorts of desperate chances.
There was the sound of sullen thunder in the tumbling sea, which swished and swirled about the little vessel like hissing serpents.
Now and then Frank strained his eyes to port, for he knew the coast lay there to leeward, and he had no fancy for suddenly coming upon some rocky point that might project far out into the sea.
He fully understood that, in case the Greyhound should become disabled, it would not take the wind long to pile them upon the shore, where the seas would beat out their lives on the rocks.
There was danger in the tempest, and it was just enough to keep Merriwell’s blood rushing warm in his veins.
“If Stanford’s yacht has found shelter in Half-moon Bay, we’ll be a hundred miles below them in the morning,” he cried to Barney.
“Sure,” agreed the Irish lad. “But nivver a bit can we hilp thot, Frankie.”
The first half of the night was wild and boisterous. Near midnight the wind fell somewhat, but it still blew so strong that the Greyhound held on its course.
Toward morning the tempest died out, and sunrise found them rolling helplessly on the long swells, without enough breeze to steady the boat.
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