He glanced down at her for a moment, then his eyes sought the furious sea. He shook his head and his hands clenched tight at his sides.
“About one chance in a thousand,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “The Evil One’s in the sea to-night. I never saw the like of it—but once.”
Then followed a struggle of human might against the will of the overpowering elements—a struggle that the girls never forgot. On, on, fought the gallant men in the staunch little boats. On, on toward the quivering giant that hung on the edge of destruction—her fate the fate of all the lives on board.
The storm that had beaten her on to the treacherous shoal was now doing its best to loosen her hold upon it. And that hold was the one slender thread that kept alive the hope of the passengers on board.
If the pounding waves once succeeded in pushing her back into the deeper water of the channel, nothing could save her. The great hole ripped in her side by the impact with the shoal would fill with water, and in five minutes there would be nothing left but the swirling water to mark the spot where she had been.
And the passengers! At the thought Billie cried out aloud and clenched her fists.
“Oh, oh, it can’t be, it can’t be! Those boats will never reach her in time. Oh, isn’t there something somebody can do?” She turned pleadingly to Uncle Tom, but the look on his face startled her and she followed his set gaze out to sea.
“No, there isn’t anything anybody can do—now,” he said.
The storm had had its way at last. The elements had won. With a rending of mighty timbers the tortured ship slid backward off the shoal and into the deep waters of the channel.
“There she goes!”