Madden wondered dully what sort of cataclysm had occurred on the little tug at that tremendous strain.
Both men still hung to the hand-grips on the useless wheel as the dock rose and dropped, thundered and groaned. Now and then from the storm-swept wave tops Madden could catch the glimmer of the Vulcan's light. This slipped farther and farther into the void, heaving night, then he saw it no more.
A sense of vast desolation swept over the American, and he was still staring into the black pandemonium ahead when Deschaillon, Hogan and a third man came struggling toward him.
"You may go back!" he yelled wearily above the uproar. "Go back—there's nothing to do. The cable's broke—the Vulcan is gone."
CHAPTER IV
AN INTERRUPTED MEETING
Convinced that there was nothing else to be done on the big dock, Madden went to his cabin, threw himself on the bunk, and there tumbled and tossed through the stormy night, sleeping brokenly and dreaming of the missing Vulcan.
Finally a bleary dawn whitened his cabin ports and the lad scrambled into damp clothes, picked up the mate's battered telescope and went on deck.
He fully expected to see the Vulcan lying close by, but as he glanced around in the dull light, an extraordinary scene shunted all thoughts of the tug from his mind. The wind had lulled, but there still rolled high a most unusual ocean. As far as he could see moved a long solemn procession of hills covered with splotches and serpentine lines of grays, olives, yellows—an ocean in motley. The great waves wove these sinuous markings up and down, in and out, confusing the eye with changing mazes.