Later that night, after a change of clothes, dinner, and a movie at Cliffport’s only theater, the boys sat on their beds in the hotel room and listened to the howling fury of the storm. Raindrops rattled on the windowpanes like hailstones, and through the tossing branches of a tree they could see the riding lights of a few boats in the harbor, rocking violently to and fro. As they watched, the wind sent a large barrel bowling down the street to smash against a light pole, bounce off and roll, erratic as a kicked football, out of sight around a corner.
“It’s a good thing we anchored out,” Jerry said, watching this evidence of the storm’s power. “The boat could really have gotten banged up against the float if we had tied it up where it was before!”
“Do you think it’ll be safe where it is now?” Sandy asked anxiously.
“Oh, a little wind and water won’t bother a good boat,” Jerry answered. “After all, it was made for wind and water! Still....” He scowled and shook his head doubtfully.
“Still what?” Sandy said with alarm. “Is there something wrong with the way we left it?”
“Not really,” Jerry said. “I’m just worried about one thing. We’re not tied to a permanent mooring, the way the other boats around here are. That means that we might drag anchor in a storm as bad as this one, and if we happen to drag into deep water where the anchor can’t reach the bottom, the boat could drift a long ways off until it hooked onto something again. And there’s always the chance that it could get washed up on the rocks somewhere, first!”
With this unhappy thought in mind, the boys stared out the window for some time in silence as the storm continued unchecked. Finally, knowing that worry couldn’t possibly help, and that a good night’s sleep would prepare them to meet whatever the morning would bring, they turned out the lights and went to bed.
But, for Sandy, bed was one thing—sleep was another. Although Jerry managed to drop off to slumber in no time, Sandy lay a long time awake staring at the shadows of the tossing tree on the ceiling of the hotel room.
His mind was full of the events of the crowded day. It had been quite a day, starting with the ride in his uncle’s sports car, and proceeding to the new boat and learning to sail. Then the mysterious man on the island, keeping guard with his ever-present rifle, and concluding with a night of powerful storm. He reviewed all this, and mixed with his recollection his new worries about the safety of his boat. A series of images crowded his mind—a vision of the smart sloop lying smashed against some rocky piece of shore was mingled with a memory of the pleasures of his first day of sailing; and somewhere, behind and around all of his thoughts, was the unpleasantly frightening memory of the man with the gun, waiting on his hermit’s island.
All of this mingled in his mind with the sound of the storm until Sandy slipped into an uncertain, restless sleep—a sleep filled with vague, shadowy dreams, connected only by a sense that somewhere, something was wrong.