Harrie Hancock - The Motor Boat Club in Florida - or, Laying the Ghost of Alligator Swamp

With that, the steward began to remove dishes and other things in a hurry, his feet sounding constantly in the passage forward of the cabin. Then, at last, he appeared to inquire:

“Is dat all fo’ me, now, ladies an’ gemmen?”

“Yes; we shan’t need you any more, Ham,” replied Mrs. Tremaine.

Ordinarily, Ham would have gone to the galley, where, with hot water ready, he would have cleaned up all the dishes.

“But Ah ain’t so shuah dere gwine ter be any mawnin’,” he muttered to himself, after he had bobbed his head up into the open for a long look at the threatening sky overhead. So Ham came out on deck, to walk about as long as he could still find it safe to do so.

Following the early winter twilight an increasing darkness had settled down over the waters. Every few minutes Captain Tom, once more at the wheel, turned on the electric searchlight, swinging it around in an arc of a circle before the boat, seeking to inform himself of any danger that might lie in their path. For the rest, the young skipper was content to steer through the darkness, having only the binnacle light upon the compass for a guide, and carrying the chart memorized in his mind.

For the last hour the waves had been crested with white-caps. Every now and then a mass of foam leaped over the bulwarks of the bridge deck, the water retreating through the scuppers. The wind was blowing at nearly twenty-five miles an hour. Yet, so far, there was nothing in the actual weather that could make a capable captain’s mind uneasy. Joe, after a look out into the black night, and after wetting his finger and holding it up in the breeze, had gone below, where he found his motors working satisfactorily. So he had turned into his bunk, hoping to catch an hour or two of sleep ere the call came for duty on deck all through the night.

The “Restless” was rolling and pitching considerably, but as yet the motion was no more than was agreeable to those who love the sea and its moods. As Ham came up on deck, however, he saw that the life-lines had been stretched. That had been Joe Dawson’s last work before turning in.

“You’ll want to keep awake to-night, Ham,” called Tom, when he saw his dark visage.

“Yassuh! yassuh!” came willingly from the colored man, who, however, could go to sleep standing up anywhere.

Though none of the passengers below was exactly afraid, none cared to turn in early that night. After the men had smoked as much as they cared to, the quartette in the cabin started a game of euchre.

Tom, who had last been relieved at seven o’clock, in order that he might go below for supper, kept at the wheel alone, until eleven o’clock. Then, catching sight of the steward’s head through the doorway of the motor room, he shouted the order to call Joe Dawson on deck.

Joe came with the promptness of a fireman responding to an alarm. He took a look about him at the weather, then faced his chum.

“Between Marquesas and Tortugas?” he asked.

“Yes. Look!”

At just that moment the red eye of the revolving light over on Dry Tortugas, some miles away, swung around toward them.

“I’m glad the gale has held off so long,” muttered Joe. “This is the nastiest part of the way. Half an hour more, if a squall doesn’t strike us, and we’ll be where we’ll feel easier.”

“It’s queer weather, anyway,” said Skipper Tom musingly. “I figured we’d be in the thick of a souther by eight o’clock.”

“Maybe the storm has spent itself south of us,” ventured Joe Dawson, but Halstead shook his head.

“No; it’s going to catch us. No doubt about that. Hullo! Feel that?”

The first drops of rain struck the backs of their necks. Nodding, Dawson dived below, coming up soon in his oilskins and sou’wester. He took the wheel while Tom vanished briefly for similar clothing and headgear.

Swish-sh-sh! Now, the rain began to drive down in great sheets, illumined by two faint flashes of winter lightning. Immediately afterward came a rush of wind from the south that sang loudly through the rigging on the signal mast.

“Now, we’ll soon be in for it in earnest,” muttered Tom Halstead, taking the wheel from his chum and casting an anxious look for the next “red eye” from the revolving light over on Tortugas.

Voices sounded on the after deck. Henry Tremaine was calling to his wife and ward to get on their rain coats and come up for a brief look at the weather.

“Joe,” muttered the young skipper, sharply, “go back to those people and tell them the only place for them is going to be below. Tell Mr. Tremaine he’d be endangering the ladies to have ’em on deck, even for a minute or two. Push ’em below and lock the after companionway, if you have to!”

Joe easily made his way aft ta carry out these instructions. Hardly had Dawson returned when another and greater gust of wind overtook the “Restless.” Her nose was buried deep in the water, as she pitched. Then, on the crest of the following wave, the little craft’s bow rose high. The full gale was upon them in five minutes more – a wind blowing fifty-five miles an hour. Running before the wind the cruiser steered easily enough. Tom could manage the wheel alone, though Joe stood by to lend a hand in case of accident or emergency.

Up onto deck stumbled Ham Mockus, clutching desperately at the deck-house and life-lines.

“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake, dis shuah gwine finish us!” yelled the steward in terror. He was so badly frightened, in fact, that both boys felt sorry for him.

“Don’t you believe it,” Captain Tom bellowed at him. “We’ve been out in a heap sight worse gales than this.”

“In dis boat?” wailed Ham, hoarsely.

“Right in this boat, in one worse gale,” replied Halstead, thinking of the September northeaster experienced on the other side of Florida, as told in “The Motor Boat Club and the Wireless.”

“But Ah reckon ole Marse Satan didn’t gwine ride on dat gale,” protested Ham Mockus.

“Nor on this gale, either,” rasped Halstead, sharply.

“Den yo’ don’ know,” retorted the steward, with an air of conviction. “Yo’s all right, Marse Tom, but yo’ ain’t raised on dis west coast like Ah wuz.”

“Get below,” counseled Joe Dawson. “You’ll drown up here, Ham.”

For, by now, the decks were awash, and there was a threat that, at any moment, the great combers would be rolling fairly across the bulwarks. Dawson drove the black man below, forcing him to close the motor room hatch.

Five minutes later, however, the hatch opened again, and Oliver Dixon appeared in rain coat and cap.

“I thought you might need an extra hand up here,” volunteered Dixon, speaking in a loud voice to make himself heard over the howling gale. “So I told the ladies I’d come on deck for a while.”

“No, we don’t need anyone, thank you,” Tom shouted back at him. “We’ll soon be past Tortugas, and then we’ll be in open waters for hours to come.”

Yet Dixon showed no intention of returning below. Tom Halstead did not like to order him below decks. Dixon, making his way to where he could lean against the cabin deck-house, was not likely to be at all in the way.

“There’s no accounting for tastes,” muttered Joe, under his breath. “If I were a passenger on this boat, and had a snug cabin to go to, that would be good enough for me. I wonder why I dislike this fellow so?”

By the time that they had the Tortugas light well astern Captain Tom jerked his head slightly, backward, then glanced meaningly at his chum before looking straight ahead.

“Yes; we’re in the open,” nodded Joe. “Good!”

Yet the gale, if anything, was increasing in severity. Staunch a craft as she was, the “Restless” creaked almost as though in agony. Timbers will act that way in any heavy sea.