"I feel a little better now," said Tom, after a while. "There's less danger of anything running into us in this smother. What are the professor and Sandy doing?"
"Trying to get a cup of hot coffee, but not succeeding very well. There's too much motion below, to stand still without gripping on to something."
"Are we keeping a straight course?"
It was Jack who spoke, after another interval in which the wind howled and the waves arose still more menacingly.
"As straight as I can steer her in this. I tell you, it's hard work to hold the wheel at all."
Indeed, every time a wave buffeted the Sea Ranger's rudder, it appeared as if the steering wheel was about to be jerked out of Tom's hand. But the elder Dacre boy possessed muscles well-hardened by all kinds of athletic games, and he stubbornly held the laboring craft to her course, despite the storm.
"I'll go below and oil up again," announced Jack presently.
He clawed his way across the bridge and vanished into the engine room. It was a wonderful contrast down there, in the warm, dry motor room, with the brightly polished machinery, working and moving in as rhythmic and unconcerned a fashion as if it was a summer's afternoon without. Incandescent globes made the place as bright as day, and the brass and steel flashed as it rose and fell with hardly any noise.
Oil-can in hand, Jack went his rounds. He poked the long spout in here and there, and then paused to wipe his hands on a bit of waste.
"I wish we were out of this," he was saying. "I wish we——"