[CHAPTER XXIII—SUSPICIONS]
The shock of the sudden stop, the tilting of the craft, which was sharply careened to one side, the howl of the wind, the rumble of the thunder, the flash of the lightning, and the dash of the rain—all these combined to make the position of those aboard the Bluebird anything but enviable.
“Are we lost! Oh, are we lost?” cried Mrs. MacCall, rushing out of the cabin. “Ha the seas engulfed us?”
“No, nothing of the sort!” answered Mr. Howbridge. “Please don’t get excited, and go back to the children. We are all right!”
“Yes, I believe we are,” added Neale, as another flash showed what had happened. “At least we are in no danger of sinking now.”
For they had been sent before the fury of the storm straight upon the rocky shore of one of the large islands of Lake Macopic. And there the houseboat came to rest.
As Neale had said, all danger of foundering was passed, and in case of need they could easily escape to substantial land, though it was but an island. But tilted as the Bluebird was, forming a less comfortable abode than formerly, she offered a better place to stay than did the woods of the island, bending as they were now to the fierce wind, and drenched as they were in the pelting rain.
“We’re here for the night, at least,” said Neale, as the continued lightning revealed more fully what had happened. “We shall not drift any more, and though there’s a lot of excitement going on, I guess we can keep dry.”
He and Mr. Howbridge, with Ruth and Agnes, stood out on the open, lower deck, but there was a shelter over their heads and the sides of the house part of the boat kept the rain from them. The storm was coming from the west, and they had been blown on the weather side of the island. The lee shore was on the other side. There they would have been sheltered, but they could not choose their situation.
“We’d better take a turn with a rope around a tree or two,” suggested Hank, as he came up to join the little party. “No use drifting off again.”