“No need to worry in this craft,” declared Ike; “she’s weathered the worst we ever get off here.”
“I expect so,” agreed the major, with an approving glance at the craft’s broad lines and generous beam.
Before many moments had passed, Rob’s prediction came true. The Algonquin, without any diminution of speed, was being pushed along through a rapidly rising sea, while the wind howled about her, growing stronger every moment. Rob caught himself wondering what sort of a craft the kidnappers of the boys possessed. He hoped it was staunch, for in his judgment the blow was going to be a bad one.
“It’ll get worser before it gets betterer,” opined Ike Menjes, coming forward from his engines and peering ahead at the tumbling masses of green water. The rising wind caught their tops and feathered them off in masses of snowy spume. Overhead, dark, ragged clouds raced along. So low did they hang that they seemed almost to touch the crests of the angry waves.
Each time the Algonquin topped a roller and then staggered down into a deep trough, Rob scanned the surrounding sea eagerly. But no sign, had, so far, appeared, of any craft resembling the one which they knew must have left the creek. Seaward some sails showed, but they were all those of large coasting schooners.
The craft they were in search of was, no doubt, a smallish vessel, otherwise she could not have negotiated the narrow, winding creek, with its innumerable bends and shallow places.
“Keep more in shore,” advised Ike. “They may have hugged the land to get the benefit of the weather shore.”
Rob headed closer in toward the low-lying coast. He could see the waves breaking angrily in white masses on the sandy beach. All at once, above a distant point of land, he sighted the gray shoulder of a sail. The next instant it had vanished.
Had it found an opening through which to slip into an inlet in the bleak coast, or had it foundered in the wild breakers?
The question agitated Rob hugely. Some intuition told him that the craft he had glimpsed had been the one they were in search of, but of its fate they could have no immediate knowledge.