Dick had a mind that worked quickly. It did not take him long to arrive at an approximately correct idea of what had happened. The yacht was ashore; and the water lapping about the lower part of the cabin showed that she had stove a hole in her bottom or else strained her plates so badly that the water was rushing in.

Suddenly the frantic pounding on the wall of the cabin which held Mr. Chadwick and his fellow prisoners recommenced. The shouting, too, was now plainly audible, for above the door opening into the main cabin was a small grating for purposes of ventilation.

“Help! help! The cabin is half full of water,” cried the imprisoned men.

“Gracious! They’ll drown if I don’t do something and do it quickly!” flashed through Dick’s mind.

All at once he felt his feet grow wet; the water already had reached half way up the steeply inclined cabin floor. There was not a minute to lose. He started for the cabin door, hoping to find a key in the outside of it, when footsteps sounded on the companionway stairs.

“Who’s there?” he yelled.

The response that came back through the darkness caused his heart to give a bound of delight.

“Jack Chadwick and Tom Jesson. That you, Dick?”

“Yes, yes, yes! Hurry up, fellows! Your dad and the rest of them are in that cabin, Jack, and the place is awash. The water’s gaining every minute.”

The boys groped their way to his side in a jiffy. There was no time for greetings just then. The three lads rushed for the door of the cabin in which Jack’s father and the others were imprisoned. But a shock awaited them. There was no key in the outside of the door. Nor did it yield to Jack’s furious poundings.

“Dad! dad! are you all right?” cried the boy.

“Thank Heaven it’s you, Jack!” came from within. “Get this door open somehow, will you? The water in here is rising all the time.”

“Yes,—yes,” responded Jack, feeling about desperately for some means of opening that door.

While he did so, the three boys were almost thrown off their feet by the sudden settling of the yacht as she subsided more deeply into the land which she had struck.

In the darkness some object came rolling across the cabin floor. It struck Jack’s knees, inflicting a painful blow. But the boy gave a simultaneous exclamation of delight.

“Hurrah! Here’s just the thing!” he cried, “one of the cabin chairs. They must have unscrewed it to feed the furnaces with.”

He stooped and picked it up.

“Stand back from the door inside there!” he shouted as he swung it over his head and brought it smashingly against the wood. Again and again his strong arms brought the heavy iron support of the swivel chair against the cabin door. At the fourth stroke the wood splintered, and in a few seconds the door was fairly burst from its hinges and three men rushed out from within, followed by a gush of water. The break in the yacht’s side had occurred in the plates outside the cabin in which Mr. Chadwick and his companions were confined. When Jack released them the water had already risen above the lower berth and was pouring in in an ever increasing stream. Fifteen minutes later and the boys might have been too late.

It was no time for explanations. The cabin floor was more steeply inclined than ever since the fresh subsidence of the stranded craft, and they made for the companionway stairs. As they reached the deck, Jack noticed that even in the brief space of time that they had been below, the wind had perceptibly decreased in violence.

But the lightning ............