CHAPTER XI.
THE BLACK SQUALL.
The boys were so engrossed in discussing the sudden conversion of theirlate enemy to a friend--or at least to no longer a source ofmenace--that it was not till a good ten minutes later that Franksuddenly exclaimed:
"The canoes!"
The spot where they had drawn them up was near the margin of the sea andthe heavy waves that the approaching storm would stir up would be sureto swamp them if they were not moved from their present position.
"Come on, boys, we've got to hurry," shouted Ben, and followed by theyoung adventurers he dashed off down the trail that the others hadtraversed a few minutes previously. They reached the shore just in timeto hear three shrill blasts from the released captive's whistle. He wasin his small boat about a hundred yards off shore and looking anxiouslyabout. He had good reason to. The thunder-growls were coming nearer, andfar to the south, across the dark cloud curtains, great jagged flashesof lightning were ripping and tearing. The sea, too, was beginning torise with that peculiar moaning sound that precedes a mighty disturbanceof its waters. The rain fell in torrents that whitened the surface ofthe sea.
The work of getting the canoes hauled into a safe place was soonperformed, more especially as they had the aid of several of themoonshiners who had accompanied them to the beach to see the last of theman they would have cheerfully hanged a few minutes before. The smallcraft were hardly snugly stowed when round the point through thedownpour, glided the motor-boat. She was low and long and painted dullblack and must have been equipped with powerful engines for she shotthrough the water like a snake. The man in the dinghy soon clambered onboard and turned to wave farewell to the soaking group of watchers onthe beach.
"Gee! I'd give a hundred dollars for an umbrella," remarked Billy.
"I hope that's his good-bye and not _au revoir_," remarked Lathrop. "Ithink you let him off much too easy, Frank," he added.
"So do I," put in Lathrop, "he really deserved some punishment."
"What were we to do?" asked Frank. "Anyhow if he doesn't keep his wordwe know his measure now and can look out for him and see he doesn't getoff so easy next time. Besides, if we had left him here thesemoonshiners would have been sure to have killed him. Ben Stubbs told methey don't hesitate to make away with any stranger-----"
"Who hasn't got a letter of introduction," Billy finished for him.
"Well, it's a good thing we had a sponsor, or we might have beenornamenting the foliage."
As the boy spoke there was a sudden shout from Ben of:
"Holy skysails, look at that!"
The boys' eyes followed the direction in which he excitedly pointed.
To the southward, before the advancing curtain of lightning tornstorm-clouds rolled a great wall of green water, ridged on the top witha line of flaky-white foam. It was tearing along toward them at the rateof an express train.
Fascinated by the spectacle of the mighty wave the boys stood watchingit for a moment in awed wonder. Its great volume was outlined againstthe background of cloud as it reared its foamy crest above the darklevel swells like a watery parapet.
As they gazed the same thought struck them simultaneously and a cry ofhorror broke from the lips of every member of the group.
The motor-boat!
It was directly in the path of the advancing mountain of water.
The two men on board the boat, who had been busied in attaching thedinghy's painter to the stern cleats, looked up almost at the samemoment as those ashore realized their peril. The boys saw them hastilyrush to their posts; one forward to the wheel in the bow, the otherbending over the engines which had been stopped when the dinghy had beenpicked up. They were evidently panic-stricken. The noise of theirterrified, confused shouts was borne shoreward on the wind.
"Can we do nothing?" asked Harry, horrified at the vision of the twodoomed men struggling aimlessly to escape the deadly peril that wasbearing down on them.
"Nothing," responded Frank, as agitated as the younger boy; "if theirboat cannot weather that wave nothing can save them."
The sea in the immediate vicinity of the island began to heave in heavyshouldering swells as the Black Squall advanced and the wave grew nearerand even more menacing as its distance from them decreased. It wasapparent that far back as even the canoes were hauled, they would haveto be hauled further inland if they were to escape damage. This work wasat once set about and the canoes dragged fully a hundred yards from thebeach.
"The wave will be all bust up by the mangroves and they'll not get muchmore than a wetting up here," remarked Ben.
This work done, Frank suggested that they climb into the branches of awide-spreading guava tree so as to be out of harm's way and also be ableto watch the motor-boat's fight for life.
"We might see a chance to help the poor fellows," he said.
The moonshiners, with impassive faces, followed the adventurers' exampleand soon all of them were roosting in the trees. Hardly had they settledwhen the mighty wave towered within a few hundred yards of the blackmotor-boat.
The occupants seemed to have lost their heads completely at theimminence of the danger and were not even attempting to do anything torelieve the situation. The man who owed his life to the boys stood erectin the stern and with his arms folded gazed at the advancing doom. Theother was groveling in terror on the boat's thwarts. Suddenly they sawthe man in the stern spring to the engine and crank the machinedesperately. The boat began to move rapidly through the swells, tossingtheir heads in spray over her sharp bow.
"She's going to race it," amazedly exclaimed Harry.
"There's not a chance," cried Frank, as the boat gathered speed and fledlike some frightened creature before the pursuing peril. She fairlyleaped through the water like a live thing. With parted lips andthrobbing pulses the boys watched the beginning of the unequal struggle.Gamely as the helmsman guided the flying craft over the swells the greatwave gained on him. The man who had been groveling in the boat in sheerterror was now on his feet. He hung onto the stern coaming and gazedback as if fascinated with awe at the pursuing Nemesis. The man in thebow never turned his head; he gazed straight forward.
Suddenly a cry that even the boys could hear broke from the lips of theman in the stern.
"The engine's stopped!" cried Frank.
Even as the words left his lips the giant comber caught the boat'sstern. It raised her up and up till she seemed fairly to stand erect onher bow, stern in air. For an imperceptible segment of time she remainedso.
The next second she was blotted out of existence in a mighty vortex ofwater.
Before the cry of horror at the swift tragedy that had been enactedbefore them had died from the boys' lips the wave broke on the shore.
With a crash like the explosion of a powder magazine it smashed itselfon the beach and a mighty inrush of water followed. The spray of itslanding flew as high as the tree-tops.
"A good thing we're up here," cried Billy, as the water came swirlingthrough the jungle beneath them.
"A good thing we hauled the canoes up, you mean," said Frank, as heanxiously watched the frail craft--as far inland as they lay--picked uplike feathers and dashed about by the inroad of the sea. To his relief,however, they survived their buffeting undamaged, thanks to their extrastrong construction.
The water rushed back down the sloping shore of the island as swiftly asit had advanced. A few minutes later they were able to descend and hurryto the beach. There was no danger of a second monster wave Ben assuredthem.
They suddenly realized though that they were dripping wet through fromthe torrential downpour that had accompanied the storm, but theiranxiety to see if any trace of the motor-boat or her occupantsreappeared prevailed over their discomfort. They stood on the beachscouring the sea with burning eyes, but it was empty of life. Theyremained silently gazing before them for several minutes--it was Ben whobroke the silence:
"What about the _Carrier Dove_? Has t
he wave struck her?" were the wordsthat brought them all out of their reverie with an anxious start.
The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; Or, Working with Wireless Page 11
