CHAPTER XI.
THE BLACK SQUALL.
The boys were so engrossed in discussing the sudden conversion of their late enemy to a friend—or at least to no longer a source of menace—that it was not till a good ten minutes later that Frank suddenly exclaimed:
“The canoes!”
The spot where they had drawn them up was near the margin of the sea and the heavy waves that the approaching storm would stir up would be sure to swamp them if they were not moved from their present position.
“Come on, boys, we’ve got to hurry,” shouted Ben, and followed by the young adventurers he dashed off down the trail that the others had traversed a few minutes previously. They reached the shore just in time to hear three shrill blasts from the released captive’s whistle. He was in his small boat about a hundred yards off shore and looking anxiously about. He had good reason to. The thunder-growls were coming nearer, and far to the south, across the dark cloud curtains, great jagged flashes of lightning were ripping and tearing. The sea, too, was beginning to rise with that peculiar moaning sound that precedes a mighty disturbance of its waters. The rain fell in torrents that whitened the surface of the sea.
The work of getting the canoes hauled into a safe place was soon performed, more especially as they had the aid of several of the moonshiners who had accompanied them to the beach to see the last of the man they would have cheerfully hanged a few minutes before. The small craft were hardly snugly stowed when round the point through the downpour, glided the motor-boat. She was low and long and painted dull black and must have been equipped with powerful engines for she shot through the water like a snake. The man in the dinghy soon clambered on board and turned to wave farewell to the soaking group of watchers on the beach.
“Gee! I’d give a hundred dollars for an umbrella,” remarked Billy.
“I hope that’s his good-bye and not au revoir,” remarked Lathrop. “I think you let him off much too easy, Frank,” he added.
“So do I,” put in Lathrop, “he really deserved some punishment.”
“What were we to do?” asked Frank. “Anyhow if he doesn’t keep his word we know his measure now and can look out for him and see he doesn’t get off so easy next time. Besides, if we had left him here these moonshiners would have been sure to have killed him. Ben Stubbs told me they don’t hesitate to make away with any stranger——-”
“Who hasn’t got a letter of introduction,” Billy finished for him.
“Well, it’s a good thing we had a sponsor, or we might have been ornamenting the foliage.”
As the boy spoke there was a sudden shout from Ben of:
“Holy skysails, look at that!”
The boys’ eyes followed the direction in which he excitedly pointed.
To the southward, before the advancing curtain of lightning torn storm-clouds rolled a great wall of green water, ridged on the top with a line of flaky-white foam. It was tearing along toward them at the rate of an express train.
Fascinated by the spectacle of the mighty wave the boys stood watching it for a moment in awed wonder. Its great volume was outlined against the background of cloud as it reared its foamy crest above the dark level swells like a watery parapet.
As they gazed the same thought struck them simultaneously and a cry of horror broke from the lips of every member of the group.
The motor-boat!
It was directly in the path of the advancing mountain of water.
The two men on board the boat, who had been busied in attaching the dinghy’s painter to the stern cleats, looked up almost at the same moment as those ashore realized their peril. The boys saw them hastily rush to their posts; one forward to the wheel in the bow, the other bending over the engines which had been stopped when the dinghy had been picked up. They were evidently panic-stricken. The noise of their terrified, confused shouts was borne shoreward on the wind.
“Can we do nothing?” asked Harry, horrified at the vision of the two doomed men struggling aimlessly to escape the deadly peril that was bearing down on them.
“Nothing,” responded Frank, as agitated as the younger boy; “if their boat cannot weather that wave nothing can save them.”
The sea in the immediate vicinity of the island began to heave in heavy shouldering swells as the Black Squall advanced and the wave grew nearer and even more menacing as its distance from them decreased. It was apparent that far back as even the canoes were hauled, they would have to be hauled further inland if they were to escape damage. This work was at once set about and the canoes dragged fully a hundred yards from the beach.
“The wave will be all bust up by the mangroves and they’ll not get much more than a wetting up here,” remarked Ben.
This work done, Frank suggested that they climb into the branches of a wide-spreading guava tree so as to be out of harm’s way and also be able to watch the motor-boat’s fight for life.
“We might see a chance to help the poor fellows,” he said.
The moonshiners, with impassive faces, followed the adventurers’ example and soon all of them were roosting in the trees. Hardly had they settled when the mighty wave towered within a few hundred yards of the black motor-boat.
The occupants seemed to have lost their heads completely at the imminence of the danger and were not even attempting to do anything to relieve the situation. The man who owed his life to the boys stood erect in the stern and with his arms folded gazed at the advancing doom. The other was groveling in terror on the boat’s thwarts. Suddenly they saw the man in the stern spring to the engine and crank the machine desperately. The boat began to move rapidly through the swells, tossing their heads in spray over her sharp bow.
“She’s going to race it,” amazedly exclaimed Harry.
“There’s not a chance,” cried Frank, as the boat gathered speed and fled like some frightened creature before the pursuing peril. She fairly leaped through the water like a live thing. With parted lips and throbbing pulses the boys watched the beginning of the unequal struggle. Gamely as the helmsman guided the flying craft over the swells the great wave gained on him. The man who had been groveling in the boat in sheer terror was now on his feet. He hung onto the stern coaming and gazed back as if fascinated with awe at the pursuing Nemesis. The man in the bow never turned his head; he gazed straight forward.
Suddenly a cry that even the boys could hear broke from the lips of the man in the stern.
“The engine’s stopped!” cried Frank.
Even as the words left his lips the giant comber caught the boat’s stern. It raised her up and up till she seemed fairly to stand erect on her bow, stern in air. For an imperceptible segment of time she remained so.
The next second she was blotted out of existence in a mighty vortex of water.
Before the cry of horror at the swift tragedy that had been enacted before them had died from the boys’ lips the wave broke on the shore.
With a crash like the explosion of a powder magazine it smashed itself on the beach and a mighty inrush of water followed. The spray of its landing flew as high as the tree-tops.
“A good thing we’re up here,” cried Billy, as the water came swirling through the jungle beneath them.
“A good thing we hauled the canoes up, you mean,” said Frank, as he anxiously watched the frail craft—as far inland as they lay—picked up like feathers and dashed about by the inroad of the sea. To his relief, however, they survived their buffeting undamaged, thanks to their extra strong construction.
The water rushed back down the sloping shore of the island as swiftly as it had advanced. A few minutes later they were able to descend and hurry to the beach. There was no danger of a second monster wave Ben assured them.
They suddenly realized though that they were dripping wet through from the torrential downpour that had accompanied the storm, but their anxiety to see if any trace of the motor-boat or her occupants reappeared prevailed over their discomfort. They stood on the beach scouring the sea with burning eyes, but it was empty of life. They remained silently gazing before them for several minutes—it was Ben who broke the silence:
“What about the Carrier Dove? Has the wave struck her?” were the words that brought them all out of their reverie with an anxious start.