"Back water! Back water!" screamed Nat.
But before he could utter another word, there was a terrific shock. The schooner's sharp bow had crashed clean into the boat. The air was filled with shouts and cries.
Nat felt the boat sinking under him, and, mustering all his strength, he sprang upward aiming for the "dolphin striker," which loomed right above him.
But even as he sprang he felt a sudden sharp pain pass through him. A million constellations swam sparklingly before his eyes and then his senses went out amid the turmoil about him.
CHAPTER V.
NAT IN DIRE STRAITS.
Nat's returning senses did not come to him till some time later. When they did they revealed his situation as one of the strangest, surely, in which any lad was ever placed.
"Good gracious!" thought Nat, as his eyes opened. "What can have——"
Swash!
A mass of green water swept over him, choking the words back down his throat and half drowning him. But the immersion in the not-over chilly water revived him fully and a few seconds sufficed to show him that he was lying half across the bobstay of the schooner's bowsprit, just aft of the "dolphin striker"—as the sharp spar that sticks out beneath the bowsprit is called.