“Oh, Nolla! It is magnificent! The waves are a mass of boiling, seething phosphorescence which actually light the whole sea! If you can hold fast, try to stand up and see.”
By dint of clinging to Polly’s legs and then holding fast to her waist, Eleanor managed to stand beside her friend just long enough to take one look at the fearsome sight of the ocean.
With a hushed cry of dismay Eleanor let go her hold and in another minute she was rolled over and over upon the floor with no means of ending the game of bowls until she had clutched the leg of her bed.
“Oh, Polly! I wish I had never looked! I’m sure we shall not be able to combat such a storm,” wailed Eleanor.
“Don’t you go and follow Elizabeth Dalken’s example of fear and cries for help,” came from Polly who still clung to the window and watched with fascinated eyes. But even her powers of endurance gave way as a monster wave, crested with such bluish, iridescent light as would have daunted the bravest nerve, rushed up against the plaything which Mr. Dalken believed to be proof against all the elements.
It struck the craft with a thundering blow and at once it seemed as if pandemonium was loose. Elizabeth yelled and screamed, other voices could be heard shouting and screaming at the top of good powerful seamen’s lungs, and the pounding of water on the deck and against the door made both girls shiver with apprehension. Polly had let go her grasp on the brass knob when the unexpected flood of water came up against the window, consequently she was shunted over against the wall beside Eleanor.
Half a dozen great seas went over the craft while Polly and Eleanor crouched against the wall in utter despair of thinking of a way to hush the nerve-racking screams from Elizabeth. When the storm seemed to reach its height, and the girls felt that they would be lost unless something happened quick, there came a sudden and awesome lull.
“Oh, thank goodness, it is over!” sighed Eleanor getting to her feet, and making an effort to reach the door of her room.
“Let’s get out and join the others, Nolla, because I have heard that such sudden lulls are merely harbingers of something worse,” advised Polly.
“There can be nothing worse than what we’ve just passed through,” said Eleanor, with a hysterical sound in her tones.