"All's well, so far," the captain announced, "but this is only the beginning. It has hardly commenced to blow yet. She can ride out these seas all right, but if this wind keeps on increasing, by morning there will be seas that are seas."
The boys glanced around at the watery mountains tumbling about them and decided that they cared not to see any bigger.
The wild plunging of the launch made sleep impossible and the four huddled together in the little cockpit wondering if day would find them alive or swallowed up by the hungry waters.
As the hours crept slowly by, they could not doubt that the wind was steadily rising. The seas grew steadily in size and the launch's pitching became wilder and wilder. Accustomed as they all were to the sea, the violent plunging gave them a feeling of nausea closely akin to seasickness. To add to their discomfort, the madly plunging launch sent up showers of spray which the wind drove in upon them soaking them to the skin and stinging their faces like hail.
"She would not float a minute if we were out in the open gulf," the captain observed. "As it is, we are drifting down the coast in between the reef and the shore and the reef breaks some of the force of the seas. A little shift of the wind and we would either be driven out over the reef or upon a rock shore."
"Cheery prospect either way we look at it," Charley said, grimly. "Heads we win, tails we lose."
No one was in any mood for further conversation. Wet, miserable, wretched and anxious, they huddled close together in the little cockpit and waited longingly for the coming of day.
At last, a gray light spread over the rolling waters and grew brighter and brighter till finally the sun peeped slowly into view.
It came up grandly in a blue sky unflecked by clouds, revealing a scene wilder than they had imagined in the blackness of the night.