They heaped wood on the dying fire and tried to dry their garments, but it was not so easy. If they got in the lee of the fire they were choked with smoke and deluged with sparks, while if they moved elsewhere they got little heat and the wind went through their wet clothing until their teeth chattered. Jack finally announced that there was but one thing to do, and that was to get their clothes off, rub themselves dry and warm with towels and dry the garments at the fire. This proved a good idea, for by the time they had applied the rough bath towels vigorously to their bodies they were in a comfortable glow. Draping themselves in blankets, they threw more fuel on the fire and held their clothes in the warmth until they were at least fairly dry. By that time it was long after five o’clock and supper was to be thought of. They decided that hot coffee would be appropriate and that it would be useless to try and do any cooking. So half an hour later they huddled in the tent and ate cold canned tongue, bread and butter, cheese and vanilla cookies and drank plenty of steaming hot coffee.
“That coffee is certainly what I needed,” sighed Hal, “but I won’t be able to sleep a wink before ten o’clock.”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t anyhow,” replied Jack, “with this wind howling so. I wish I was sure this old tent wouldn’t leave us in the middle of the night.”
They lighted the lanterns and heaped up the fire again and strove to be cheerful. But the lanterns flared and guttered and the boom of the sea and the roar of the wind were depressing. Even Bee began to look glum, and long before it was nearly their usual bed-time, conversation had entirely died out and the three boys were huddled under their blankets silently watching the lanterns swaying from the roof-pole. They had decided that they would not take their clothes off, since, as Jack pointed out, it might be necessary for them to get up and chase the tent across the island before morning.
“I’d give something to be at home just now,” observed Hal once, “with my back to the library fire. This camping-out isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, fellows.”
“And this is certainly camping out,” agreed Bee. “I suppose it was on nights like this that Old Verny used to light his trusty lantern and take a stroll along the beach, eh, Jack?”
“I dare say. I guess there’s more than one boat in trouble tonight. The wind must be blowing a good forty miles.”
There was not much pleasure in talking, however, even if they had had anything to say, for the noise of the elements was so great that they had almost to shout to make themselves heard across the tent, and so they relapsed into silence again and regretted having drank that coffee.
About nine o’clock a flurry of rain set in and the drops dashed against the tent like hailstones. Several crashes of thunder followed, and once the lightning flared so brightly that the glow of the swaying lanterns was dimmed in the tent. Then the rain blew over, the thunder died away as quickly as it had come and only the dry gale remained. But its fury continued unabated and by ten o’clock had even perceptibly increased. The only thing that saved the tent was the fact that it was protected from the direction of the storm by the shoulder of the hill and the grove. Even as it was, it seemed every moment that at the next onslaught the canvas would be ripped into ribbons or torn from its ropes. The boys huddled under their blankets with taut nerves and staring eyes, watching the canvas above them bulge and flap and the lanterns rock and flare, with sleep a long way off. And yet it is probable that, an hour or so later, each was drowsing a little, for when the first sudden boom of the cannon came Jack heard it as though in a dream, while Bee and Hal, being questioned, declared they had heard nothing. They waited. The minutes passed and only the howling and screeching of the tempest was audible. Jack had about reached the conclusion that he had imagined the sound when it came again: