The wave swept on, while under their keel, another equally huge mass of water bellied up and flung the boat aloft on its surface.
Slowly the bow swung. The next glimpse Tom caught of the menace, it was off to port—but did a range of submerged reefs extend far across their path? Tom pointed out the threat to Bill and Nicky. They gasped, so close was the nearer of the needles.
All along the coast of Central America these reefs and islands, huge barrier reefs, wide, low-lying circle reefs, atolls enclosing tiny islets—all are a menace to navigation, and it is a skillful pilot who will try to take a boat in among them.
Henry Morgan was not a skillful pilot, but he had been through the barriers about the Rio Patuca mouth many times and he felt sure of his ability, coupled with an abiding faith in his “luck.”
But just after a storm, and with the seas even more wild than was their usual turbulent state, the task of getting through the reefs was one to whiten his face and shake his very marrow. Bill, looking back, saw his face of terror and, with a word to the boys, scrambled to the cabin and snatched the wheel from fingers already nerveless with fear. But the boat had paid off, the signal for full speed ahead had been obeyed, the steerageway, aided by the surge and force of the waves, had enabled them to turn aside. They swept over the first barrier on a huge swinging crest, seeing, through the clear water, that the jaws of rock seemed to gnash in fury at the loss of their prey. Tom and Nicky, gripping the capstan with one hand each, clutched one another with the other, clinging in tense, breathless waiting.
But the boat did not strike. She missed the rocks by almost a miracle. Had Henry kept his senses earlier in the voyage he would hardly have exposed them to such peril. For it was not over; it had scarcely begun!
“It isn’t only the rocks,” Nicky shrilled. “It’s—sharks!”
“Keep still,” Tom called back, squeezing Nicky’s arm reassuringly. “Watch to the fore and on your side.”
Nicky’s eyes were fixed on the swirl in the water just ahead, and on the triangular black fin to port than on his duty, and it was fortunate that no rock loomed near his post; the sharks were gathering with seemingly uncanny instinct, waiting—waiting—waiting!
Bill, once the menace of the outer reef was passed, swung the bow down the coast, and because the most powerful thrust of the waves had been subdued, although they still were big enough to roll the cruiser sickeningly, they were able to make headway, always fighting outward a few points to overcome the inswing of the water.