Even their hoped-for assistance from other craft failed them; for, though several, all evidently yachts, approached at different times during the day, they all sheered off when near enough to distinguish the signals fluttering from the Whisper's mast-heads.
So the unhappy Sea Rangers, growing more and more terrified with each passing hour, sailed all day without making any land or being able to hail a single vessel. By nightfall they were enveloped in a thick fog, the wind had whipped round and was blowing half a gale from the eastward, a heavy sea was running, and most of the boys were so prostrated by sea-sickness that they no longer cared whether they lived or died. Just before dark Will Rogers and little Cal Moody, who were the only ones not affected by sea-sickness, lowered all the sails, and managed clumsily to secure them.
None of the Rangers had ever dreamed of anything so awful as the long hours of darkness that followed, during which their craft drifted, rolling and pitching furiously, and utterly at the mercy of wind and wave. At length, after what seemed an eternity of darkness and terror, Will Rogers, who, with little Cal cuddled close beside him, was half dozing with utter weariness in the cockpit, was roused into a sudden activity by the unmistakable boom of breakers close at hand.
"Hello, fellows!" he yelled, springing to his feet, "tumble up here in a hurry and make sail or we'll be lost. We're almost on the rocks now!"
This thrilling summons was sufficient to banish even sea-sickness, and a few minutes later the yacht, under mainsail and jib, was slowly drawing away from the dangerous though still unseen reef.
Some hours afterwards a hot sun, scattering the sullen fog-bank, poured its cheery rays over the haggard-looking Rangers, who, in various attitudes of utter misery, occupied the wet decks of the yacht. All at once they sprang to their feet with shouts of dismay and terror, for, out from a low hanging bank of mist, that was slowly rolling away astern, there came a flash as of lightning, and the thunderous roar of a heavy gun. At the same moment, as though it had been cloven in twain by the shot, the fog opened and a United States man-of-war, snow-white and gleaming in the sunlight, loomed up directly behind them, terrible and yet grandly beautiful in its on-rushing majesty.
The Rangers gazed at this bewildering apparition in speechless terror, fully expecting that another minute would see them run down and crushed like an egg-shell. As the monster dashed up abreast of them, at the same time slackening her speed with reversed engines, an officer, hailing from the bridge, demanded to know the yacht's name.
"Whisper!" shouted Will Rogers, recovering somewhat his self-control.
"What do you mean by that, you impudent young pirate?" roared back the officer, angrily. "Why don't you heave to? Heave to, sir, at once, or it will be the worse for you."
"We don't know how," sang back Will, while all the others trembled in their bare feet, and almost expected to receive a broadside from the gleaming guns that grinned at them not a stone's-throw away.