Arrived on deck it did not take the boys long to realize what had happened. The yacht was aground, but whether on a reef of rocks or on the shore was not at first plain. Suddenly a blinding flash of lightning showed them the true situation. The Valkyrie lay with her bow ashore amidst what appeared to be a confused tangle of roots and low growing shrubs. More than this it was impossible to make out. One thing alone was clear—only too clear,—the voyage of the yacht was over. She lay canted far over to one side, making it a difficult matter to stand steadily on her sloping deck.
The crew were running about as if possessed. Any slight amount of discipline that Medway and Hemming might have exercised over them had vanished in this emergency. Some of them were actually trying to get one of the two remaining boats over the side regardless of the mountainous sea that was running. The play of the lightning was incessant. The whole sky appeared to be ablaze with livid fire. In the blue glare the figures on deck were outlined as plainly as if on the screen of a moving picture theatre. But it was grim, real-life drama that was being enacted.
The boys saw Medway and Hemming, with revolvers in their hands, go slipping and sliding across the inclined deck and rush into the midst of the group of seamen about the boat.
“drop those falls, you fools!” they heard Hemming shout above the tempest. “It’s death to launch a boat in this!”
But the panic-stricken sailors appeared not to notice the two mates. They struggled with the boat and, finally, actually succeeded in getting it overboard. Then they piled into it helter skelter. Some of them fell overboard in their eagerness, but by the glare of the lightning the boys could see that those in the boat dragged them on board again before they were sent to the bottom.
A huge wave came bearing down on them and lifted the boat high in the air. The boys uttered a shout of alarm. It looked inevitable that the boat would be smashed to bits against the yacht’s side. But those on board her managed to stave the frail craft off, and in a minute another big sea swept the little boat with her load of human beings off into the darkness beyond their ken.
Medway and Hemming stood leaning out over the bulwarks peering into the night. They were shouting something, but the boys could not hear what.
The furious wind caught their words and hurled them broadcast before they had properly left their lips.
“Is she breaking up?”
Tom shouted the words into Jack’s ear as the two boys, clinging to the shrouds, stood on the inclined deck.
“I don’t think so,” was Jack’s reply, yelled with his hands to his mouth, funnel-wise, “she’s grounded so far on shore that she’s safe for the time being, anyway.”
“We’d better go below and see how the others are getting on,” came from Tom the next minute.
In their excitement and fright the boys had utterly forgotten for the time being their companions. The thought of the plight that they might be in now recurred to them with redoubled force. Slipping along the precipitous deck they made their way to the cabin companionway. As they went they noticed the marks of the relentless axes of the crew. Except the main cabin house amidship, the yacht had been practically stripped of every bit of available timber. She looked, as indeed she was, a sorry derelict.
It is now necessary to turn back a little and discover how the prisoners in the adjoining cabin had been faring. It will be recalled that when Jack and Tom had been summarily taken from the cabin they shared with Dick Donovan, the next stateroom was occupied by Mr. Chadwick, Professor Von Dinkelspeil and Captain Sprowl.
The two weeks that had been spent by the boys in the engine-room had passed like eternity to those locked in the cabins. Of course, they had been able to communicate by means of the “Morse” tappings. But Dick’s knowledge of telegraphy was so limited that he had not been able to understand much of w............