“I’m going around the other side,” Bill spoke sharp and quick, and disappeared under the overhanging rocks.
“Come over to me, Rob,” said Dick. “There! brace your feet and you’ll be all right. It’s going to be more wind than rain, and if we only stick close—” but there was a tremor in his voice which silenced the oath on Tom Lawrence’s tongue, and sent a paleness over more than one cheek.
For the next fifteen minutes nobody spoke a word, or could have heard themselves if they had, it thundered so incessantly. The wind came in gusts, seeming to gather strength in each lull of its fury.
“How high is the water now?” asked Rob, when only the lashing of the waves broke the stillness. “Has it carried away the tea-kettle?”
“I guess it’s gone to sea by this time,” said Dick, trying to speak cheerily, although he shuddered at the steady rise of the angry waves towards their narrow refuge. Pretty soon Varney uttered a sharp cry as the white foam broke over his feet.
“Couldn’t a fellow swim ashore, if he knew how?” asked Tom, huskily.
Will Carter stood up and looked around.
“Not in such a sea as that, and there isn’t a boat in sight,” he said, shortly. “There’s no way; we might as well give up; it will be over our heads in less than an hour.”
He dropped down again, face to the rock. One loud, bitter cry for help broke from them all. The wind caught it up mockingly, shivered it into a hundred little echoes, and went shrieking away again. The boys crept still nearer together.
Suddenly Robert, who was clinging convulsively to Dick, cried out, “Say it over, Dick! Say it out loud! Will said there wasn’t any way, and that’s so dreadful. Please, Dick!”