CHAPTER X.
THE TIGERS OF THE SEA.
The storm-driven schooner drove past the swamped boat, with its two castaways clinging to it, in a smother of foam and spray. So fast was she traveling that hardly had her outlines loomed up before they were lost again in the darkness. Nat caught himself wondering if that night was to prove the last of the schooner's existence. But it may be stated here that the "Nettie Nelsen," staunch sea boat that she was, weathered the storm unharmed.
The storm-driven schooner drove past the swamped boat,
with its two castaways clinging to it.
"Vell, here iss der vorst fix I voss ever in since I bin going py der sea."
It was Captain Nelsen who spoke, as a pallid and wild dawn broke over the raging sea, showing nothing but tossing whitecaps as far as the eye could reach. Overhead great torn ribbands of cloud were hurried by, their black outlines macerated by the wind which was still blowing hard. But rough as the sea still was and strong as the wind remained, there was no doubt that the fury of the gale was over. In a short time it would have blown itself out.
This was encouraging to the castaways, but even with calm seas their position would still have been a desperate one. Adrift on the trackless Pacific, without food or fresh water, and so far as they knew, far from the line of travel of ships, the man and the boy clinging to the waterlogged boat were in about as bad a fix as can be imagined.
Nat, too, strong as he was, began to feel the strain. The long period he had gone without food, for he had tasted nothing since the meal which Hicks and Britt had brought him, was beginning to tell on him. Captain Nelsen's iron frame, however, inured to hardship and peril, was as vigorous as ever, or so it seemed.