Something just alongside the Viking that looked surprisingly like a dory, with some sort of a figure crouched down in it,—and which may or may not have caused the sound that had awakened Henry Burns,—lay quiet there for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes,—a good half-hour in all. Then it moved away from the side of the boat, passed on ahead for a moment, and stole softly away over the waves.
The booming of the seas upon the reefs! How the hollow roar of it sounded far over the waters. How the thin wisps of spray, like so much smoke, shot up through the darkness, white and ghostlike!
A strange phenomenon! But if by chance there had been some shipwrecked man clinging to that reef, he might have fancied that the rocks to which he clung were drifting in the sea—strangely shifting ground and drawing up closer to a yacht at anchor.
Or was it something different? Was the yacht really no longer lying anchor-bound? And was it drifting, drifting slowly down upon the rocks, soon to be lifted high upon a crest of the ground-swell—and then to be dropped down heavily upon one of the streaming, foam-covered points of ledge?
Crash and crash again! Was it louder and heavier than before?
Henry Burns’s eyes opened wearily.
The sound of the sea seemed stunning. What was it about the noise that seemed more fearful, more terrifying, more dreadful than before?
He sprang up now. Yes, there could be no doubt. Something was wrong. The sea rising, perhaps. The wind blowing up. There it came, again and again. It was louder—and louder still. A mind works slowly brought quickly from sleep; but Henry Burns was wide awake now.
The boys had turned in half-undressed, to be ready for an early start in the morning. Henry Burns slipped on his trousers, scrambling about in the darkness.
“Jack, get up!” he cried, seizing his sleeping comrade and shaking him roughly. “Wake up, fellows—quick! Something’s the matter.”