As it went away and left them to the mercies of the sea, cries of anguish, despair and condemnation were hurled after the men who had thus set the passengers and crew adrift. Women sobbed, and men stood up in the boats and shook their fists after the steamship Yucatan.
And then the great ship disappeared from sight. The men in the small boats renewed their work at the oars, and the boats moved toward the distant Cuban coast.
Adding to the fearfulness of their condition, darkness descended upon them like a pall.
CHAPTER X.—COLON.
At a word from Mr. Willing, after several hours of rowing, Shirley and Mabel cuddled up in their end of the boat and tried to sleep; but this they found impossible, and all through the night they gazed out over the dark waters.
Here and there the lights in the other boats were visible, but before morning they had lost sight of these. When the first faint streaks of dawn appeared in the east there was not another boat to be seen. They had become separated in the night.
The almost twenty passengers in the little craft ate of the food that had been provided and drank of the water. Thus refreshed, and with the sun now appearing above the horizon, their predicament did not seem as serious as it had during the blackness of the night.
There was not an object in sight to break the monotony of the water, and the boat rocked gently on the easy swell of the sea. The men bent to the oars again and sent the little craft skimming through the water.
Came a cry from the man at the rudder, and the eyes of the others followed his gaze toward the distant horizon. They beheld a faint cloud in the otherwise clear sky.
“Steamer!” cried the first man.