“Here you are! Why not lash the wheel, Skipper, and come below for eats?” queried John.
“O.k., be right down!”
With that Stan slipped a bit of roping over the spokes of the wheel and, jockeying the craft a bit to get the right pressure of the rudder, tightened a hitch about a cleat. He had already done the same with the main sheet and the keen little vessel now sailed along by herself on a fairly good course in what was left of the evening breeze while the Captain joined his cook below decks at a meal that was filling and appetizing. Rolls and butter, some canned beef with sauces, plenty of jam, a slice or two of cake, a few doughnuts, coffee, and a liberal glass of milk were enjoyed amidst much joking and fun. John was a “scream,” always thinking of some funny remark and keeping the more serious Stan in general good humor. They were just finishing supper when the Water Witch jolted hard to port, dumping the remains of the meal into John’s lap, for he sat on that side of the small portable table, and pitching Stan half onto his chum!
“Help!” cried John. “Bluebirds and fireflies—and bushels of grape-juice-biscuits! We’re wrecked, Skipper!”
Quickly, even as the Water Witch righted herself and the scraping sounds which had penetrated the interior of the sloop disappeared, the boys were in the cockpit staring wildly about!
Nothing greeted their startled eyes save the unruffled water of the bay, for the last of the breeze had died with the fast setting sun and only an occasional “cat’s-paw” disturbed the surface here and there. The sloop heeled slowly, creaking just a little, to one of these soft puffs of wind now.
“Well, tender chunks of jellybeans—what happened?” John wanted to know, scratching his head and running lean fingers through the dark hair, while his dark eyes pondered and stared.
“John, in the first place, we struck something that was submerged. Might have been a water-soaked log, or almost anything. Let’s take a bearing and see what the chart says. Should have five fathoms along here if my memory serves me!”
The chart showed six fathoms of water and there were no indications of rocks or obstructions of any other kind in the spot where the Water Witch had struck.
“I took a careful bearing from the trees on top of Porpoise Island, Stan,” John pointed out, “and another on the Centerport Watch Hill Tower that we can just see across the bay. The angle is a good one and I’m sure I got it right. Then whatever we struck is a ‘foreign body’——”