CHAPTER III. – A LONG NIGHT

Blinded, choked and with a red mist before his eyes, and in his ears the roar of waters, Jack fought the undertow of the retreat of the giant wave with all his strength. All at once he felt some heavy object hurled against him.

The force of the collision almost knocked what little breath remained in his body out of his lungs. Instinctively he reached out for whatever it was that had struck him.

It was a human body.

The boy had hardly realized this before he found himself flung, panting and gasping, down upon the deck. Thanks to the stays of the foremost of the Sea Gypsy’s two masts, against which the retreating wave had pitched him, he had not been drawn overboard. Instead, as the pressure of water relaxed, it had dropped him and the mute burden he had clasped, to the deck.

For a few minutes Jack lay there panting, too much exhausted to exert a muscle or limb. The unconscious form hurtled against him by the swirling waters lay at his side. It was too dark for Jack to see then who it was, or if life remained in the motionless figure. By-and-by, as his strength came back, he got to his feet and dragged the limp form to a cabin. It proved to be the one which the great wave had swept from Jack so unceremoniously. Luckily, although the seas were thundering mountains high about the laboring yacht, none like that first terrific comber assailed her.

Steadying himself on the rocking floor with much difficulty, Jack fumbled for the electric switch. He found it at last and let on a flood of light. The radiance shed itself on a pale face with a deeply slashed forehead that lay at the boy’s feet.

“It’s Billy,” choked the boy. He got on his knees by Raynor’s unconscious form and gently raised his chum’s head. It fell back limply. A blood-chilling thought surged through Jack and he grew as white as the lad he held.

He put his hand hastily over Raynor’s heart and a great wave of relief went through him. His chum’s heart was beating, although feebly. It was not too late to save him. It was a hard task for Jack to stagger across that bounding, reeling floor, carrying the limp and unconscious Raynor, but at last he managed to accomplish it, and deposited the injured young engineer in the bunk that occupied one side of the latter’s cabin. Then he washed and dressed the injury as best he could.

“Now I’ll have to get help,” said the boy to himself. “The captain’s got a medicine chest and bandages, but we have no doctor. I’ll go and find the skipper.”

Out upon the dripping decks, over which a wave crest would every now and then curl, with a roar like that of a waterfall, Jack once more emerged. Clawing at hand-holds and desperately clinging on now and then when a wave threatened to tear loose his grip, he wormed his way forward. As he reached the bridge deck, he heard a thunderous roar forward, and the Sea Gypsy, as if she had been freed of a burden, made a sudden plunge skyward, with her bow pointing almost straight at the obscured heavens.

“There goes the fore-deck load of coal,” thought Jack, as he made his way to where, in the lee of the pilot house some obscure figures stood huddled. Ten minutes later he and the gaunt form of Captain Sparhawk were bending over Raynor, as he lay white and still, in his bunk. With rough skill the captain dressed the wound.

“It’s a wonder that Mr. Jukes wouldn’t have brought a doctor along,” he muttered. “He’s carrying a rapid-fire gun, so why not sawbones, too?”

“Where is Mr. Jukes?” demanded Jack suddenly.

“In his cabin, I guess. I haven’t seen him since this ocean tantrum broke out.”

“The – the rapid-fire gun you spoke about?” asked Jack.

The other looked at him in some confusion.

“Confound my habit of talking to myself,” he exclaimed. “Did you hear that?”

“I couldn’t help it,” apologised Jack. “Are we going to fight any one?”

“You must ask Mr. Jukes that,” answered the captain, non-committally. “It’s up to him to tell what he wants to. All I know is that there is one on board. Maybe he brought it along to shoot clay pigeons with. Maybe not. I don’t know.”

“Well,” he added, “I’ve got to get for’ard again. I guess our young ship-mate will do now. He had a nasty crack though. Both of you are lucky you’re not in Davy Jones’ locker.”

All through the rest of that tempestuous night Jack sat by his chum, dozing off at times and then waking with a start to hear the uproar of the hurricane as they struggled through it. The dawn showed a troubled sea, leaping at the yacht as though to engulf her. The wind almost flattened Jack against the deck house as, Raynor having sunk into a deep sleep after an interval of consciousness, the young wireless man set out to see what chance there was for breakfast.

The companionway to the dining saloon on the deck below was in the after part of the ship. As he was about to descend an unusually big wave lifted the Sea Gypsy dizzily skyward, and then rushed her downward. There was a heave and a crash from the stern and Jack saw the after deck load of coal vanish like a black avalanche, to be swallowed up in the maw of the sea.

“Worse, and more of it,” he muttered, as some of the crew who had narrowly escaped being overwhelmed, set up a shout; “this will be bad news to give poor old Billy.”

CHAPTER IV. – THE DERELICT

Two days later the hurricane had blown itself out. The storm-stressed crew were set to work putting things to rights and the yacht put on more of her normal appearance. But she had been sadly battered for all that. Two boats were stove in, ventilators smashed and stanchions bent and twisted by the fury of the waves.

The flat, oily sea that succeeded the wild turmoil of the hurricane, heaved gently without a ripple as Jack and Raynor, the latter recovered but still wearing a bandage round his head, stood looking over the rail into the glassy waters.

So transparent was the ocean that, under them, they could see great fish swimming about slowly and lazily, as if life held no hurry for them. Now and then a great shark glided by, nosing about the ship for scraps. His sharp, triangular dorsal fin stuck from his back like a blue steel knife cutting the surface and glistening like a thing of metal. About these great tigers of the deep, two smaller fish usually hovered. These were pilot fish, the strange sea-creatures that invariably accompany sharks, and are supposed by sailors to pilot them to their prey.

Then there were queer-looking “gonies,” with their flat heads winging their way above the water and every now and then dropping, with a scream and a splash, in a group of a dozen to fight furiously over some drifting morsel. After these tussles they appeared to “run” over the water to give their heavy, awkward bodies a good start upward. Then, having attained a certain height, down they would flop again, like weights shooting through the air, hitting the water with a heavy splash and sliding, with a white wake behind them, for some feet.

Schools of nautilus, too, gave them something to look at as the delicate little creatures, with their thin, membranous sails set, drifted by under the gentle breeze that hardly ruffled the water.

“Doesn’t look much as if this ocean could ever have kicked up the ructions it did, eh, Billy?” remarked Jack, after a long silence.

“It does not,” replied Raynor, with a rueful grin, “but I owe it this crack on the head.”

“And the loss of that coal,” chimed in Jack. “No wonder you look glum, old fellow. We’ll never make port on what’s below.”

“Not a chance of it,” was the rejoinder, “about all we can do is to use the sails if the worst comes to the worst.”

“Well, as we don’t appear to have any port in view, and nothing to do but to keep on drifting about like another Flying Dutchman, I don’t see that it much matters where we fetch up,” commented Jack, with some irritation.

It was at that instant that there came an interruption. The voice of the sea-man at the look-out forward broke the spell.

“Steamer, ho!” he shouted.

“Where away?” came a hoarse voice from the bridge, that of Mr. Jolliffe, the first officer.

“Three p’ints on the starbo’d bow.”

“Let’s go forward and have a look,” suggested Jack. “You’re not on watch for some time yet.”

“I’m with you,” agreed Raynor. “Anything for variety’s sake. Wonder what ship it is?”

“Too far off to make out yet,” said Jack, as, far off, they could just about see, by straining their eyes, a small dark speck on the distant horizon.

“I don’t see any smoke,” said Raynor. “Perhaps it’s a sailing ship after all.”

“We’ll know before long,” was Jack’s reply.

During an interval in which the Sea Gypsy drew steadily toward the craft that had, by this time, excited the attention of all on board, the boys saw Mr. Jukes emerge from his cabin and take his place on the bridge beside Captain Sparhawk. That bronzed mariner handed the millionaire his glasses and Mr. Jukes’ rather fat, pallid face took on an unwonted hue of excitement as he handed them back.

The boys standing on the main deck just below the bridge heard the owner of the yacht putting sharp questions. He showed more animation than he had at any time during the voyage. The sight of the other craft appeared to affect him curiously.

“She’s a schooner, Sparhawk.”

“Undoubtedly, sir.”

“But although she has her canvas set she is making no way.”

“That appears to be correct. But there is little wind. Odd though that she doesn’t signal us.”

Mr. Jukes snatched up the glasses again from the shelf where he had laid them down.

“Blessed if I can make out a soul on board her, Sparhawk,” he exclaimed presently. “Here, try what you can do.”

He handed the binoculars over to the master of the Sea Gypsy. Captain Sparhawk took a prolonged observation. When he, in turn, laid the glasses down his thin, mahogany-hued face bore a puzzled look.

“It’s queer, sir, but I don’t seem to be able to make out a living soul either.”

“A derelict, perhaps?”

“Possibly,” assented the captain, and no more was said as, with all eyes fixed on the strange schooner, the Sea Gypsy drew nearer. The boys could now make out every detail of the other craft. She was a trig-looking schooner, painted black, with a flush deck except for her after house and a small structure astern of the fore-mast. Her canvas was set but it flapped idly in the light breeze as she swung to and fro on the Pacific swells. No guiding hand could be seen at her wheel. Not a soul was visible on her deserted decks.

There is no more melancholy sight than a sea derelict, the aimless prey of winds and currents, drifting sometimes for years over the trackless wastes of the ocean. The boys felt something of this as all doubt as to human occupancy of the schooner vanished.

“Deserted, I reckon,” hazarded Jack. “Although her canvas appears perfect, her hull sound and – ”

He broke off sharply. From the abandoned ship there had suddenly come a sound which, under the circumstances, was particularly depressing and even startling.

It was the measured tolling of a bell, like a funeral knell.