“What happened?” asked Bert’s mother, as she saw that he was rather “mussed up,” from what had occurred.
“Oh, I tried to come down the stairs head first,” Bert answered with a laugh. “I don’t like that way. I’m not going to do it again,” and he told what had taken place.
And then the storm burst with a shower of rain and a heavy wind that tossed and pitched the boat, and made many of the passengers wish they were safe on shore.
The Bobbsey twins had often been on the water, when on visits to Uncle William at the seashore, as I have told you in that book, and they were not made ill by the pitching and tossing of the steamer.
Still it was not much fun to stay below decks, which they and the others had to do all that night and most of the next day. It was too rough for any one to be out on deck, and even the sailors, used as they were to it, had trouble. One of them was nearly washed overboard, but his mates saved him. And one of the lifeboats—the same one in which the men had gone to save the fishermen from the sharks—was broken and torn away when a big wave hit it.
“Is it always rough like this when you go past Cape Hatteras?” asked Bert of his father.
“Very frequently, yes. You see Cape Hatteras is a point of land of North Carolina, sticking out into the ocean. In the ocean are currents of water, and when one rushes one way and one the other, and they come together, it makes a rough sea, especially when there is a strong wind, as there is now. We are in this rough part of the ocean, and in the midst of a storm, too. But we will soon be out of it.”
However, the steamer could not go so fast in the rough water as she could have traveled had it been smooth, and the wind, blowing against her, also held her back. So it was not until late on the second day that the storm passed away, or rather, until the ship got beyond it.
Then the rain stopped, the sun came out from behind the clouds just before it was time to set, and the hard time was over. The sea was rough, and would be for another day, the sailors said.
“And can we go on deck in the morning?” asked Bert, who did not like being shut up in the stateroom.