By midnight the storm was on them in all its fury. The Coryanda pitched and tossed in the darkness, the wreckage at her side banging and pounding at every rise and fall of the waves.
“Gee, maybe that raft will knock a hole in our side!” said Fred.
“Well, I don’t know what to do about it, and neither does Small,” answered Jack. “We can’t afford to cut it loose, and it might be too dangerous to try to tow it; the line might snap, and then we’d have nothing to take to if the yacht went down.”
“It’s too bad if we all go down,” murmured Ira Small, mournfully. “I always did hope I’d live long enough to find them thirteen rocks an’ git a chance to hunt for that pirates’ gold.”
The wind had been rising steadily until now it was blowing with hurricane proportions. The boys and the old tar did what they could to steer the yacht so that she might head up to the waves. But the water-logged condition of the craft was against her, and often they hit a mountain of water with a resounding crash that threatened to smash all the timbers beneath them.
“I don’t see how the vessel can stand much more of this,” declared Randy, after a crash that had all but sent them sprawling.
“We’ve got to take what comes, and that is all there is to it,” answered Jack, trying to put on a brave front for the benefit of his cousins. “If she starts to go down, all we can do is to make a rush for the raft.”
About two o’clock in the morning they made the discovery that the Coryanda was slowly but surely settling. The force of the elements had torn away one corner of the two tarpaulins lashed over the hole at the bow, and into this the waves kept pouring whenever they hit.