“Go below, now, boys,” said Uncle Dick, as he came out of the cabin with his oilcloth suit on, and his speaking-trumpet in his hand. “I am going to batten down everything. Take Dick and Bob with you.”
Before the trappers could refuse to go, as they would probably have done had they been allowed time to think, they were pulled down into the cabin, and the door, being closed behind them, was covered with a tarpaulin; so were the skylights, and thus the cabin was made so dark that the boys could scarcely distinguish one another’s features. This was the first time these precautions had been taken since rounding Cape Horn, and the boys made up their minds that the storm was going to be a severe one.
“I don’t like this at all,” said Eugene. “I’d much rather go on deck and face it.”
“You are safer here, for there is no danger of being washed overboard,” said Featherweight.
“But I want to see what is going on,” said Eugene. “I can’t bear to be shut up in this way.”
“How would you like to belong to the crew of a monitor?” asked George. “In action, or during a storm at sea, the crew are all below, and they are kept there by heavy iron gratings.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Eugene. “They must be regular coffins.”
“They sometimes prove to be, that’s a fact. The Tecumseh was blown up by a torpedo in Mobile harbor, and went to the bottom, carrying one hundred and twelve men with her.”
“Human natur’!” shrieked Dick, as all the occupants of the cabin were thrown from their seats by the sudden lurching of the vessel. “We’re goin’, too! We’re goin’, too!”
“Oh, no,” replied Frank, picking himself up from under the table, where he had been pitched headlong. “That was only the first touch of the storm.”