“Her cargo is shifting!” shouted Abe, above the roar of the storm. “I hope it doesn’t shift too much.”
Almost immediately afterward there seemed to be less spray coming aft.
“She’s risen by the head!” cried Joe, who managed to make an observation at great risk to himself. “The lumber below decks has shifted aft and her bow is higher out of water. That makes it good for us. We’ll be drier now.”
And this was so. With the bow higher out of the water the craft presented a better front to the breaking seas, and what at first seemed a calamity turned out to be a great blessing.
The remainder of the night, though the storm did not abate, was not such a source of worry to the refugees. True, the wind was as violent, and it even shifted their shelter from where it was lashed on deck, but the waves did not bring so much discomfort, for the higher bow sent them hissing away on either side.
Somehow morning broke, and in the gray dawn they looked about on a storm-tossed waste of waters. Now they would be down in a hollow of the waves, and again high on some crest, at which latter time they looked anxiously for a sail. But they saw none.
It was just a little after day had broken that the improvised mast gave way with a snap, and would have gone overboard with their precious sail, had not Abe and Joe made a hasty grab, saving it.
“We need that in our boat—if it ever gets calm enough to calk it,” declared Abe.
“What about breakfast?” asked Tom a little later. “I guess we can all eat.”
“Right you are, my hearty!” cried Joe. Even the terrible storm could not dampen the spirits of the sailors. Little Jackie was happier too, now that daylight had come, and only Mr. Skeel seemed moody and depressed. He looked at his companions without speaking.