We were doing all we could, and the result rested in the Providence that watched over us.
So eight bells found us.
I hunted up Robbins to get his opinion, and learning that he was in the wheelhouse, watched my opportunity, scurried across the wet deck ankle deep in water that could not escape fast enough, and managed to dash into shelter just before another billow broke over us.
Cummings and Karl Wagner were also there, and hard pressed to keep a course.
They complained of the compass, and declared it acted as unsteady as during a magnetic storm.
It had never played us any tricks before, but had always been perfectly reliable.
If we got off our course, the consequences might be disastrous. Ugh! I had no desire to even think of that, remembering what a cruel and treacherous stretch of coast extended along the border of Bolivar.
We talked matters over.
It was anything but bright, the outlook.
The barometer had gone down abnormally low, the reading being almost at twenty-eight, which proclaimed that we had not yet passed the apex or crown of the storm, which, in a hurricane, is called the core or center of disturbance.