He seized up an old bait tub, a boat hook and a "swabbing-out" broom, and lashed them all together in a sort of bridle. Then he attached the Flying Fish's mooring cable to the contrivance and paid it out for a hundred feet or more, while the storm-battered craft drifted steadily backward. Instead, however, of lying beam on to the big sea, she now headed up into them, the "drag," as it is sometimes called, serving to keep her bow swung up to the threatening combers.

"There, she'll ride for a while, anyhow," breathed Tubby, when this was done.

"What's to be done now?" shouted Merritt in his car.

"Nothing," was the response; "we've got to lie here till this thing blows over."

"It's breaking a little to the south now," exclaimed Merritt, pointing to where a rift began to appear in the solid cloud curtain.

This was cheering news, and even the seasick but plucky Hiram, who had been bailing for all he was worth, despite his misery, began to cheer up.

"Hurrah! I guess the worst of our troubles are over," cried Tubby.

"It certainly looks as if the sea was beginning to go down, and the wind has dropped, I'm sure."

That this was the case became apparent shortly. There was a noticeable decrease in the size and height of the waves and the wind abated in proportion. In half an hour after the rift had been first noticed by Merritt, the black squall had pa.s.sed, and the late afternoon sun began to shine in a pallid way through the driving cloud ma.s.ses.

The lads, however, were still in a serious fix. They had been driven so far out to sea that the land was blotted out altogether. All about them was only the still heaving Atlantic. The sun, too, was westering fast, and it would not be long before darkness fell.

Without gasoline and with no sail, they had no means of making land.

Worse still, they were in the track of the in and out-bound steamers to and from New York--according to Tubby's reckoning--and they had no lights.

"Well, we seem to have got out of the frying pan into the fire," said Merritt in a troubled voice. "It's the last time I'll ever come out without lights and a mast and sail."

"That's what they all say," observed Tubby grimly. "The thing to do now is to get back to sh.o.r.e somehow. Maybe we can rig up a sail with the c.o.c.kpit cover and the oars. We've got to try it, anyhow."

After hauling in the sea anchor, the lads set to work to rig up and lash the oars into an A shape. The canvas was lashed to each of the arms of the A, and the contrivance then set up and secured to the fore and aft cleats by the mooring line they had utilized for the sea anchor.

"Well," remarked Tubby, as he surveyed his handiwork with some satisfaction and pride, "we can go before the wind now, anyhow--even if we do look like a lost, strayed or stolen Chinese junk."

"Say, I'm so hungry I could eat one of those fish raw!" exclaimed Hiram, now quite recovered, as the Flying Fish, under her clumsy sail, began to stagger along in the direction in which Tubby believed the land lay, the wind fortunately being dead aft.

"Great Scott, the kid's right!" exclaimed Merritt. "We forgot all about eating in the gloom but now I believe I could almost follow Hiram's lead and eat some of those fellows as they are."

"Well, that's about all you'll get to eat for a long time," remarked Tubby, grimly casting an anxious eye aloft at the filling "sail."

CHAPTER XVII

ALMOST RUN DOWN

It grew dark rapidly and the night fell on three lonely, wet, hungry boys, rolling along in a disabled boat under what was surely one of the queerest rigs ever devised. It answered its purpose, though, and under her "jury mast" the Flying Fish actually made some headway through the water.

None of the boys said much, and Tubby, under the cover of the darkness, tightened his capacious belt. It spoke volumes for his Boy Scout training that, though he probably felt the pangs of hunger as much or even more keenly than the others, he made no complaint. Hiram, the second-cla.s.s scout, complained a bit at first, but soon quieted down under Merritt's stern looks; as for the latter, as corporal of the Eagle Patrol, it was his duty to try to keep as cheerful as possible; which, under the circ.u.mstances, was about as hard a task as could well be imagined.

The eyes of all three were kept strained ahead for some sign of a light, for they had been so tossed about in the squall that all sense of direction had been lost, and they had no compa.s.s aboard, which in itself was a piece of carelessness.

Suddenly, after about an hour of "going it blind" in this fashion, young Hiram gave a shout.

"A light, a light!"

"Where?" demanded Tubby and Merritt sharply.

"Off there," cried the lad, pointing to the left, over the port side of the boat.

Both the elder lads gazed sharply.

"That's not the direction in which land would lie," mused Tubby.

"The light's pretty high up, too, isn't it?" suggested Merritt. "It might be a lighthouse. We may have been blown farther than we thought."

Tubby offered no opinion for a few seconds, but his ordinarily round and smiling face grew grave. A sudden apprehension had flashed into his mind.

"Tell me, Merritt," he said, "can you see any other lights?"

"No," replied Merritt, after peering with half closed eyes at the white light.

"I can," suddenly shouted young Hiram.

"You can?"

"Yes; some distance below the white light I can see a green one to the right and a red one on the left."

"Shades of Father Neptune!" groaned Tubby. "It's just as I thought, Merritt--that light yonder is a steamer's mast lantern, and the fact that Hiram can see both her port and starboard lamps beneath shows that she's coming right for us."

This was alarming enough. Without lanterns, without the means of making any noise sufficiently loud to attract the attention of those on the approaching vessel, the occupants of the Plying Fish were in about as serious a predicament as one could imagine. To make matters worse, the wind began to drop and come in puffs which only urged the Flying Fish ahead slowly. Tubby made a rapid mental calculation, and decided that hardly anything short of a miracle could save them from being run down, unless the steamer saw them and changed her course.

"Can't we shout and make them hear us?" asked Hiram in an alarmed voice. He saw from the troubled faces of both the elder lads that something serious indeed was the matter.

"We might try it," responded Tubby, with a bitter shrug. "But it's about as much use as a mouth organ in a symphony orchestra would be.

Better get on the life belts."

With hands that trembled with the sense of impending disaster, the three boys strapped on the cork jackets.

"Now all shout together," said Merritt, when this was done.

Standing erect, the three young castaways placed their hands funnel-wise to their mouths and roared out together:

"Ship ahoy! St-eam-er a-hoy!"

They were alarmed and not ashamed to admit it.

"No good," said Tubby, after they had roared themselves hoa.r.s.e. "When she strikes us, jump over the starboard bow and dive as deep as you can. If you don't, the propellers are liable to catch us."

It was a grim prospect, and no wonder the boys grew white and their faces strained as the impending peril bore down on them.

They could now see that she was a large vessel--a liner, to judge from the rows of lighted portholes on her steep black sides. Her bow lights gleamed like the eye of some monster intent on devouring the Flying Fish and her occupants. On and on she came. The air trembled with the vibration of her mighty engines, and a great white "'bone" foamed up at her sharp prow.