All day the wind blew with unabated fury, and when evening came on Frank thought that it was increasing rather than diminishing in force.
"Let's have a glass of grog and tumble in, my lad," Hiram said, "it gives one the dismals to listen to the wind." They had scarcely wrapped themselves in their blankets when the boat swayed as if struck by an even stronger blast than usual; then there was a sudden crash, which rose even above the howling of the gale.
"What's that?" Frank exclaimed, sitting up.
"It's the tree," Hiram began; but while the words were in his mouth there was a shock and a crash, the roof of the little cabin was stove in, and the boat heeled over until they thought it was going to capsize. Frank was thrown on to the floor with the violence of the shock, but speedily gained his feet.
"What has happened?" he exclaimed.
"The tree has gone," Hiram said; "I have been looking at it all the afternoon, but I didn't want to scare you by telling you as I thought it might go. It's lucky it didn't fall directly on us, or it would have knocked the boat into pieces. The door is jammed. Get hold of that hatchet, lad, and make a shift to get your head out to look round and see what we are doing. Do you hear them niggers holloaing like so many tom-cats? What good do they suppose that will do?"
"I can't see anything," Frank said when he looked out; "it's pitch dark. I will make this hole a bit bigger, and then I will take the lantern and crawl forward and see what has become of the blacks. I am afraid the tree has stove the boat in: look at the water coming up through the float-boards."
"Ay, I expect she is smashed somewhere; it could hardly be otherwise; I reckon this is going to be about as bad a job as the one I was telling you about. Here, lad, put this bottle of rum into your jacket and this loaf of bread; I will take this here chunk of cold beef; like enough we may want 'em afore we are done."
When Frank had enlarged the hole sufficiently to allow his body to pass through, he put the lantern through and then crawled out. He was in a tangle of branches and leaves. The head-rope was a long one; the tree had fallen directly towards them, and the boat was, as far as Frank could see, wedged in between the branches, which forked some forty feet above the roots; a cross branch had stove in the cabin top, and another rested across the scuttle of the cabin used by the negroes.
"Hand me the axe, sharp, Hiram," he said; "the niggers can't get out, and our bow isn't a foot out of water."