So saying, he rummaged two suits of oilskins out of a locker and hastened on deck. Spume and smoky spray were flying over the Nomad in clouds. The craft looked like an eggshell amidst the ranges of watery hills. Joe slipped into his oilskins and then took the wheel while Nat donned his foul-weather rig.
Presently Ding-dong, grimy from his engines, joined them.
“How is everything running below, Joe?” asked Nat, as the figure of the young engineer appeared.
“Fur-fur-fine as a h-h-h-hundred dollar war-watch,” sputtered Ding-dong; “ber-ber-but I’ve got her slowed down to ten knots. How about the sick man?”
“That can’t be helped,” declared Nat. “If I were to make any more speed in this sea, we’d all be bound for Davy Jones’ locker before many minutes had passed.”
“Hum! That is certainly a fact,” assented Joe, as a big green sea rose ahead of them like a watery hillock and the Nomad drove her flaring bow into it. The water crashed down about them and thundered on the deck.
“There’s a sample copy,” sputtered Joe, dashing the water from his eyes and giving a grin; but, despite his attempt to make light of the matter, he grew very sober immediately afterward. Stout craft as the Nomad was, she was being called upon to face about as bad a specimen of weather as the Motor Rangers had ever encountered. What made matters worse, they had a badly—perhaps mortally—injured man on their hands. Delay in reaching harbor might result fatally. They all began to look worried.
Ding-dong dared to spend no more time on deck away from his engines. If anything happened to the motor, things would be serious indeed. He dived below and oiled the laboring motor most assiduously. Every now and then the propeller of the storm-tossed Nomad would lift out of the water, and then the engine raced till Ding-dong feared it would actually rack itself to pieces. But there was no help for it; they must keep on now at whatever cost.
For an hour or more the wind continued to blow a screaming gale, and then it suddenly increased in fury to such a degree that Nat and Joe, who were taking turns relieving each other at the wheel, could feel it pressing and tearing against them like some solid thing. Their voices were blown back down their throats when they tried to talk. Their garments were blown out stiff as boiler iron.
“How much longer can we stand this——” Joe was beginning, shouting the words into Nat’s ears, when suddenly there was a jarring quiver throughout the fabric of the motor craft and the familiar vibration of the engines ceased. Simultaneously the Nomad was lifted on the back of a giant comber and hurled into a valley of green water, from which it seemed impossible that she could ever climb again. But valiantly she made the ascent in safety, only to go reeling and wallowing down the other side in a condition of terrifying helplessness.