"You had better get them all out," Arthur said; "it is as much as we shall be able to do to keep her head to the storm. Now, all row quietly. The squall will be on us in a couple of minutes; when it comes, you will have to put your whole strength into it. It is fortunate that I am steering with this short oar. If she had had a rudder we should never have kept her straight, for she will be hardly moving through the water."
There was a sudden splash of rain, then a pause, and then it came down in bucketfuls, while the wind literally howled. For a time the exertions of the four rowers, and of Arthur at the steering oar, kept her head straight; but after a quarter of an hour the rowers, unaccustomed to prolonged exertions, began to flag. Arthur changed places with the stroke-oar, and the boat again made a little way; but the advantage gained by his strength was more than counterbalanced by the want of skill of the helmsman, and at the end of five minutes' rowing the boat's head fell off, and the wind caught it and whirled it round.
"Oars in!" Arthur shouted. "I will take the helm again. You four had better sit down in the bottom of the boat. A big sea will be getting up very soon."
"How long is it going to last?" Sinclair said, when they had all crouched at the bottom of the boat.
"It may last two or three days, and the wind could not be in a worse quarter. If it shifts, we might make either the coast of Spain or France; but it is a south-easter, and will blow us right out into the bay. It is lucky you brought those two bottles of wine and that loaf of bread with you; we shall want them badly before we see land again. I wish to goodness we had run in to that man-of-war. I have no doubt at all now that the man was hailing us, and that they were going to caution us against going out farther. However, wishing is useless; we have got to grin and bear it."
"We were fools not to take your advice earlier, Hallett."
"I don't think it would have made much difference," Arthur said. "If we had turned then, we could not have got back before the squall struck us, and we should have been blown out just as we have been now."
He was now sitting in the bottom of the boat also, still holding the steering oar. There was, however, but little to do with it, the boat was running straight before the wind.
"What pace do you think we are going through the water?" Sharman shouted, for they could scarcely hear each other speak.
"About six or seven knots, I should say."