The terrible storm struck them at midnight, near the mouth of the bay. The small crew worked and struggled heroically with wind and waves, but to no purpose.
The Roma foundered at sea.
Hanson, his captain and crew barely escaped with their lives by taking to an open boat, in which they were tossed about all night in the tempest, and from which, when it was about to break up under them, they were picked up by a merchant ship, bound from Baltimore to San Francisco.
Thus it happened that while Hanson’s friends were speculating as to what course his pleasure cruise on the Roma had taken, the yacht was at the bottom of Chesapeake Bay, and her owner, with all her crew, was bound on a long, compulsory voyage around Cape Horn, and was suffering the tortures of the damned through seasickness, cold, wet, exposure and deathly peril.
It was not until the first week in April that the ship reached San Francisco.
Hanson had not a cent of cash with him, but he had boundless credit. By this he obtained money enough to pay off his captain and crew and to make preparations to return to Washington by the overland route as fast as steam, by day and night, could carry him.
All through his long journey the question that racked him was:
How should he find Roma?
CHAPTER XI
ON HER TRACK
Hanson, having traveled day and night, reached Washington city on the morning of April 15th.