The storm grew worse, and at times the spray from the big waves flew over the top of the wooden shelter, and dripped down inside. The wind blew aside the canvas that closed the front and threatened to lift, bodily, the structure itself.
But the sailors had done their work well. The rope lashings held, though they were strained to their limit. The lifeboat, moored as it was to the deck, tried in vain to break loose to join with the waves in their revelry of the storm. Joe and Abe looked to it, testing every knot, however, and their seamanship told. For the present they could defy the storm.
Mr. Skeel fairly whimpered when he saw the big seas all about them, but no one paid any attention to him and he had to make out as best he could. He tried to shirk his trick at the helm, but Abe, taking hold of his arm, marched him to the rude steering apparatus, and bade him hold to it for his life.
“But I—I may be washed overboard,” objected the former professor.
“You’re in less danger here than any of us,” declared the sailor. “You stay here until your time is up,” and Mr. Skeel dared not disobey. His spirit had been broken when Tom, and his chums of Elmwood Hall, had successfully gone on their strike.
How they got through that night the castaways hardly knew afterward. Several times it seemed as if the wind would carry away either the structure they had built on deck, or the lifeboat that had been reconstructed with such labor. But the two sailors, with Tom to help them, made lashing after lashing, as one or another tore away and so they held to that which they needed most.
Little Jackie proved himself a hero, for when Tom had explained that he must stay alone part of the time, the little fellow obeyed, though he had hard work to choke back the sobs when his companion was out on deck, doing what he could to keep the boat from being carried away.
When the storm had been raging for an hour or more there was a sudden tilt to the derelict, and a grinding crashing sound somewhere in her depths.
“What’s that?” cried Tom in alarm.