CHAPTER XII
TROUBLED WATERS
Each succeeding wave was likely to slop over the gunwale and add to the cargo of salt water already shipped by the dory. She was squattering down like a wounded duck, and seemingly quite as helpless.
Degger was able only to cling to the steering oar, and that was a most futile thing to do. Lorna seized the bailer and threw the water out as fast as she could. But one person could not bail as fast as the sea came inboard.
The Fenique, meeting the cross-seas as Ralph Endicott steered her down upon the wallowing dory, rolled enormously, but her owner knew the craft's seaworthiness. Her water-tight compartments, bow and stern, would keep her afloat even if the cockpit filled and she became quite unmanageable.
The dory was fairly water-logged. That indeed was the salvation for the moment of her two passengers. The dory would not turn turtle while it swam so low in the sea.
Lorna was at last thoroughly frightened. It was not that she had never been in equal peril. Once, when they were half-grown, she and Ralph had been swept out to sea in a never-to-be-forgotten tempest, and had taken refuge upon the Quail Shoal lightship. That was an occasion to be remembered in very truth!
But the girl had not experienced at that time this terrible sinking feeling of helplessness that she now endured. It was born in her mind that it had been her perfect trust in Ralph Endicott that had buoyed her up on those other occasions when they were in peril together. She felt her own helplessness at the present time, and in Conny Degger's face she marked nothing but an equal fear. Degger possessed none of Ralph's initiative nor any degree of his cool courage.
She was face to face with death. She could not swim to the shore in such a sea as this. Indeed, no swimmer could live in it. If Ralph in his motor-boat did not overtake them soon, Lorna believed there was little hope for Degger and herself.
She continued to bail desperately. The water in the boat rose against her breast and almost choked her. The chill of it made her gasp. Dimly she saw Degger struggling with the oar. She looked away at the plunging Fenique with Ralph standing amidships and clinging to the wheel.