“Exactly; I can always feel it in that larboard leg of mine—a touch of the rheumatics, you know—a reg’lar barometer—sure to tell me when trouble is coming.”
“What sort of a coast have we here?” asked the boy.
“It is one of the infernalest coasts in the whole creation,” was the reply of Captain Cole. “I was wrecked on it twice, and the last time I came up, only missed it by a hair’s breadth.”
Harry could not but feel alarmed at the words of the captain; but beyond his own personal fear, was anxiety about Little Rifle, who, he knew, was at no great distance ahead, and whose vessel would be caught in the same tempest, if it should come, and would, in all human probability, share the same fate.
“Do you know what boat Mr. Ravenna and his daughter sailed upon?” he asked of the officer.
“Certainly,” was the prompt answer. “It was the North Star, a schooner belonging to the Smith Brothers, of Fr’isco, engaged in the same trade with us.”
“Is she a stanch vessel, able to weather such a storm as seems to be coming?”
“She is one of the rottenest, good-for-nothingest old hulks in the trade. It’s a wonder to me that she hasn’t gone to the bottom before, for she ain’t any better than an old tub.”
This was very dispiriting tidings, to say the least, and Harry began to believe that instead of being through with the difficulties and dangers, the greatest still remained before them.
As if to emphasize the words of the captain, the whistling of the wind through the cordage at this moment rose so high and shrill, that they distinctly heard it in the cabin, although the door was closed. At the same time the vessel made a deep plunge into the sea.