The boatswain's mate piped his shrillest. Those below swarmed upon the already settling deck. It was plain at once that the steamer had but a few moments to live.

"A mine!" declared Ensign MacMasters. "That is what did it! That Hun mine-sower has been this way!"

The men and boys went to quarters coolly. They had been drilling every day on the steamer just as though they were aboard the _Kennebunk_.

There was both a liferaft and a tight yawl aboard. These were got over into the comparatively quiet sea, water and an emergency ration-cask put aboard each, and Mr. MacMasters brought his instruments and papers, taking his place in the stern of the boat. The latter had a small engine, and there was a hawser with which she might tow the raft.

Meanwhile the wireless operator had been calling for help. He got a reply from a land station, but none from any sister naval ship. However, they were so near land that it did not seem that this mattered.

"Let her go, boy!" shouted the ensign to the operator. "Come on! She's going down."

They pulled away just in time, and got the little engine to kicking as the wrecked auxiliary craft of the _Kennebunk_ sank stern foremost under the sea. As she went down her bows rose out of the water and the castaways saw the great wound torn in two of her water-tight compartments by the mine.

CHAPTER XVIII

MORE TROUBLE

Philip Morgan and Al Torrance both were in the yawl, and were a.s.signed to pull oars if the engine went dead from any cause. The two younger Seacove boys were taken by the warrant officer, Mr. Mudge, aboard the buoyant raft.

"Well, old man," muttered Torry in his mate's ear, "this is a new experience. We've never been shipwrecked before."

Ikey on the raft was bewailing the loss of some of his duffle. "Oi, oi!

And a nice new black silk neckerchief, too! Oi, oi! All for the fishes yet."

Mr. MacMasters laughed, and did not order the boys to cease talking as a sterner officer might have done.

"We may as well take it cheerfully," he said. "I'm thankful there's n.o.body lost. And there can be no blame attached to any of us because of the loss of the boat."

"Ah, that's all right," grumbled the warrant officer on the raft. "But think of those miserable Huns, sneaking away in here and dropping a mine in a channel where nothing but small craft dare sail."

"Excursion steamers from Charleston use this channel," Mr. MacMasters said. "I know it to be a fact."

"Ah! That's the Hun of it," repeated the second. "To sink a craft having aboard a lot of innocent and helpless folk out on a pleasure excursion would be just his delight."

First of all the two officers had looked over their charts and decided on the course to pursue. Charleston was not the nearest port.

The barometer was falling again and there was every promise of more bad weather. It was decided to make for a small town behind the islands, and instead of continuing through the channel where the _Kennebunk's_ auxiliary steamer had been mined, it seemed better to take advantage of the tide and run back to the open sea.

There they proposed to skirt along the outer beaches of the islands until they reached another pa.s.sage marked on the charts as being the entrance to the sheltered harbor of the port in question. The distance was about ten miles.

There was no danger from reefs in this direction, and if they had to beach the boat and the raft the sh.o.r.es of the islands would seem to offer safe landings. They were yet to learn different.

Yet the decision was wise as far as the two officers could be expected to know without a special knowledge of the conditions. What mainly they failed to apprehend was the swiftness with which the new storm was approaching.

The little yawl chugged away cheerfully and drew the life raft out of the channel. No other craft had been in sight when the _Kennebunk's_ auxiliary steamer was blown up, and therefore none had come to their a.s.sistance.

The local fishermen and navigators of small craft appreciated the coming of this second storm on the heels of the first. It would probably pounce upon the coast with suddenness, so the fishing boats had already run for cover.

The yawl and raft got out into the open sea safely, and Mr. MacMasters steered for the harbor in which they expected to take refuge.

The first island was long and narrow--a mere windrow of rock and sand breaking the force of the sea. The huge combers coursing up its strand broke twenty feet high and offered nothing but utter destruction to any small craft that attempted a landing.

"That is no welcome coast," Mr. MacMasters said. "I wonder if we shouldn't have gone behind the islands after all, in spite of the reefs."

But it was too late to change their plans now. The first strait that opened between the islands was a ma.s.s of white water.

The raft was clumsy, and the yawl could make but slow headway. Suddenly the wind fell; but with its falling the sea began to rise.

"What does it look like to you, Mr. Mudge?" Ensign MacMasters asked the officer on the raft.

"More trouble. The wind's going to spring on us from a new quarter,"

was the reply. "See yonder!"

Away to the northwest a cloud seemed rolling upon the very surface of the sea it was so low. At its foot, at least, the sea sprang up in a foamy line to meet the pallid cloud. There was a moaning in the air, but distant.

"That's going to hit us hard!" cried Mr. MacMasters. "It's more than an ordinary gale."

"That's what it is, sir," admitted Mudge.

"Wish we were ash.o.r.e!" shouted the ensign.

"Any chance, that you see?"

They were off the coast of the second island now. That was heavily wooded and the sh.o.r.e was more broken. But it seemed as inhospitable as that of the one of wider beach.

The newly risen gale was yet a long way from them, the low moaning of the tempest seemed distant.

The swell beneath the yawl's keel suddenly heaved into a gigantic wave upon the summit of which the boat was lifted like a chip in a mill-stream.

Some of the crew shouted aloud, in both amazement and fear. The propeller raced madly; then the engine stopped--dead.

"Out oars! Look alive, men!" was the ensign's command.

The clumsy raft tugged at the end of her hawse. The yawl went over the top of the wave and began to coast dizzily down the descent.

The rope which held it to its tow cut through the swell. It tautened--it snapped!

The loose end whipped the length of the yawl viciously and threw two of the crew flat into the boat's bottom.

The oars were out. Ensign MacMasters yelled an order to pull. Philip Morgan and Al Torrance found themselves throwing their entire strength against the oars.

The raft rose staggeringly upon the huge wave behind the boat. Mr. Mudge had a steering oar out; but the raft wabbled on the summit of the swell as though drunken. They saw the castaways upon the raft cowering helplessly.

Then like a shot the white wave rode down upon them with the pallid storm-cloud overhead. The yawl was headed into the gale and the oarsmen pulled like mad.