Without delay Jack and his two cousins re-entered the cabin and made a thorough search of that compartment and the staterooms adjoining. They kept their eyes open for more reptiles, but none appeared. In one stateroom they found a case containing two automatic pistols, and on a rack in another stateroom they found two double-barreled shotguns. All of the weapons were loaded; and they also found some extra ammunition.
“Now I guess we’ll feel better,” said Jack, after Fred and Randy had appropriated the pistols and he had armed himself with one of the guns. “I’ll take this other gun up to Andy and Small.”
“Here’s another pistol!” exclaimed Fred, having looked into a drawer under one of the stateroom beds. “It’s a small affair, but it looks to be all right and it’s fully loaded.”
“We’ll give that to Andy and that old sailor can take the shotgun. Then each of us will have a weapon.”
In one of the staterooms they had also found a good-sized flashlight, and this Jack placed in his pocket.
“I suppose we really ought to go down in the lower hold and find out how badly she is leaking,” he said. “Do you feel like going with me?”
“I don’t feel very much like it, Jack,” answered Fred, candidly. “But I suppose it ought to be done. We’ll take our weapons and the flashlight, and then maybe we’ll be safe. I don’t believe any wild beast would want to charge us with that light flashing into his face.”
The boys soon located the engine room of the steam yacht, and there found a ladder leading down to the lower hold, which was, as they later on found, connected with the upper deck by several hatchways, all of which had been battened down during the storm.
They found the hold divided into several compartments. Most of the doors of these compartments were closed and bolted. There was a miscellaneous cargo of boxes, crates and barrels, all thrown into hopeless confusion, caused by the listing of the vessel.
“She has not only settled on her port side, but she’s also settled at the stern,” said Jack. “That’s why the smashed-in bow is sticking so high in the air. There doesn’t seem to be any great amount of water forward, not over a foot at the deepest.”