Later that same day they had occasion to remember those boats.
They made a good day’s run, and night found them tied up to snubbing posts placed for the purpose; their lanterns displayed, they went to bed, each with a light conscience and heavy eyelids. The open-air exercise and active appetites made the boys sleep solid as logs. The grain boats they saw in the morning came along, towed by a steam barge; tooted for the lock to be opened, and two of the boats passed through. But the boys never stirred. The third boat was left to her own control, and, being without sails or steam, she drifted with the wind unhampered. Unladen, her high sides offered a splendid surface to the breeze, and she drifted sidewise towards the “Gazelle.” Black and remorseless, she swung towards the little yacht nestling close to the rock-lined bank of the canal. The grain boat’s one human passenger sat sleepily on a great cleat aft and dozed. The boys slept on, all unconscious of their impending doom. Slowly, slowly, she drifted nearer, until she touched the “Gazelle’s” sides. The ironclad’s bulk was great, and, driven by the wind against her tall sides, she pushed the yacht steadily until the smaller boat was hard against the shelving rocky bank. Still the pressure continued, and she began to be pushed up out of the water by the tremendous squeeze. All three boys were stirred into wakefulness by the first upward lift.
The first sound that reached their ears was the groaning of the timbers under the tremendous grip of stone and iron.
Instantly the words of the elder Ransom flashed into Kenneth’s mind.
“Look out and don’t get wrecked on the canal,” he had written.
Something, the boy knew not what, held his beloved vessel in its grip. Some tremendous power was crushing his vessel as a strong hand grinds an almond shell to fragments. The tongued and grooved cherry woodwork of the cabin creaked, snapped, and, as they looked, was forced out at the joints by the fearful pressure.
With a cry that was half a groan, Kenneth rushed on deck, followed by Arthur and Frank. The great iron sides loomed above them black and implacable.
For an instant he stood dazed, uncomprehending, then he realized the situation—realized that the mighty floating fabric of iron, forced by the wind beyond the power of human hands and human brains to check it, was slowly grinding the doomed yacht to kindlings. He could not bear to think of his vessel a wreck, and, for a moment, covered his eyes with his hand.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE GRIP OF IRON AND STONE