Chapter XXI: The Wreck

"There must certainly be something the matter with that man!" exclaimed Cora. She had fairly to shout to be heard above the noise of the wind and rain.

"Well, we daren't stop to see what it is," said Belle. "Oh, do go faster, Cora! Get in quiet water! I am getting seasick!"

"Don't you dare!" cried Bess. "Think of--lemons!"

"I'm going to see what is the matter," declared Cora. "He's waving to us!"

"What about the boys?" asked Eline.

"They don't seem to see him. Besides, they're past him now, and it would be risky to turn back. I can easily pass near him."

The man, who was in a power-driven dory, was waving and shouting now, but the wind carried his words away. He seemed to be in some difficulty.

"Why doesn't he row in out of the storm?" asked Bess.

"Perhaps he has lost his oars," suggested Eline.

"Maybe that is the trouble," remarked Cora. "Well, we'll soon see."

She changed the course of the _Pet_, though it was a bit risky for the seas were quartering now, and the spray came aboard in salty sheets. But the girls could not get much wetter.

Cora slowed down her engine by means of a throttle control that extended up near the wheel. She veered in toward the tossing dory.

"What is it?" she cried. "What's the matter?"

"Out of gasoline! Can you lend me a bit so I can run in? I came out to lift my lobster pots, but it's too rough."

"Gasoline? Yes, we have plenty," said Cora. "I'll give you some."

"Don't come too close!" warned the fisherman. "Can you put it in a can and toss it to me? That's the best way."

"I'll try," promised Cora, as she cut off all power. The _Pet_ was now drifting, rising and falling on the swells. Belle looked very pale, and Bess was holding her.

"Find something, and run some gasoline into it from the carbureter drip," directed Cora, as she clung to the wheel.

"What shall I find?" asked Bess.

"Would an empty olive bottle do?" asked Eline.

"The very thing!" cried Cora. "Has it a cork?"

"Yes, and one olive in it."

"Throw out the olive, and poke your handkerchief down in the bottle to dry it out before you put in the gasoline. Even a drop of the salt water the olives come in will make trouble in the gasoline. Hurry!"

"Look out!" cried the fisherman. "Fend off!"

"You'd better do it!" directed Cora. "We have no boat hook!"

"All right, I'll attend to it."

The two boats were drifting dangerously close together. The fisherman caught up an oar he carried for emergencies, and skillfully fended off the _Pet_, which was drifting down on him. In the meanwhile Bess, with the help of Eline, had dried out the olive bottle, and had filled it with gasoline.

"What shall I do with it?" she asked Cora.

"Throw it to the man."

"I never can throw it."

"Then give it to me," and, holding to the wheel with one hand, with the other Cora tossed over the bottle of gasoline. The lobsterman caught it, called his thanks and gave the _Pet_ a final shove that carried her past him.

"Can you crank her?" asked Cora to Bess, nodding toward the engine.

"I'll try!"

It needed three tries, but finally the motor started, and the boat surged forward again. Cora, bringing her head up to the seas, noted that Jack had started to turn around to come back to her, but, seeing that the _Pet_ was under way again, had gone on his own course.

The wind continued to blow, the rain never ceased and the storm increased apace. But finally, after a battle with the elements that made the hearts of the girls quail, they passed the lighthouse point, and shot around into the quiet and wind-protected waters of the bay. A little later they were chugging into the even calmer cove.

"Oh Cora! So frightened as I have been!" exclaimed Aunt Susan, as the dripping girls trooped up the hill to the bungalow. "Oh, what a storm!"

"But we weathered it!" laughed Cora, shaking back her damp hair. "It was a bit scary at first, but we came out all right. It was fun at the finish."

"I'm never going out again when it's cloudy!" declared Belle. "Never!"

"Oh, you'll get used to it," said Eline.

Dry garments, hot tea, and supper coming in the order named restored in the girls their natural happy dispositions. But the storm continued. It grew worse as darkness advanced, and the wind rose to a gale. The rain came down in torrents, and the boys, in spite of rain coats and umbrellas, were drenched a second time in the short trip from their bungalow to that of the girls, when they came to pay a visit.

"It's a wild night," declared Jack, as he and his chums got ready to go back, about ten o'clock.

"There must be quite a sea on," said Ed.

"I wouldn't want to be out in it," remarked Walter.

"And I beg to be excused," came from Norton.

"Think of the poor sailors," said Eline, softly.

"I tell you what I'd like to do," observed Jack.

"What?" Ed wanted to know.

"Go over to the lighthouse. It must be great up in the lantern room in a storm like this."

"Don't you dare to go!" cried Cora. "It might blow away."

"No danger," said Jack with a laugh. "But I'm not going. Another thing we might do."

"What?" demanded Norton.

"Go out and find a beach patrol. We could walk up and down with him, and maybe sight a wreck."

"Oh, don't speak of a wreck!" begged Bess. "A wreck on such a night would be dreadful."

"This is just the kind of a night when they have wrecks," observed Ed, as a blast of wind and rain shook the bungalow.

As the boys were going out into the storm there came a dull report, reverberating on the night air.

"What was that?" gasped Cora.

"Sounded like a gun," said Jack. "Maybe a ship at sea----"

There was a flash in the sky. It was not lightning, for there was no thunder storm.

"See!" exclaimed Eline.

"The lighthouse," ventured Norton.

"The light is over there," and Ed pointed to the flashing beacon in a different direction.

"Then it's a rocket from some ship in danger," declared Walter. "There goes another!"

It was unmistakably a rocket that went cleaving through the blackness. It came from off the lighthouse point.

"Some ship is in danger, or maybe off her course," spoke Jack. "Well, we can't do anything, and there's no use getting any wetter. Come on to bed, fellows."

"Oh, the poor people--if that is a wreck," murmured Bess.

"If it was only daylight we might witness some rescues," said Cora. "But at least let us hope it is nothing serious."

It was Rosalie who brought the news next morning. Through the driving rain she came to the girls' bungalow, her face peering out from beneath a sou'wester that was tied under her chin, her feet barely visible beneath the yellow oilskin coat.

"There's a wreck ashore!" she cried. "I thought maybe you might like to see it! It's out in front of our light, and they're bringing the crew ashore!"

"Can they save them?" asked Cora, clasping her hands.

"Most of 'em, I guess. Want to come?"

"Of course we'll go!" cried Eline. "The boys won't want to miss this!"