Burt Standish - Frank Merriwell's Athletes - or, The Boys Who Won

Frank was watching her with the greatest anxiety, wondering what sort of storm boat she would prove to be.

Diamond, Browning, Hans and Toots got below. Rattleton and Hodge remained on deck with Frank and Barney.

When the moon shot out through the clouds the boys could see a great waste of water heaving and plunging all around them, like a sea of snow.

But the moon appeared and disappeared in such an erratic manner that it was extremely irritating, making the whole world seem a place of troubled shadows and awesome shapes.

“It’s dead lucky we reefed down for this, Barney,” cried Frank, placing his lips close to the Irish lad’s ear.

“Roight ye are, me b’y,” Mulloy called back, cheerfully. “It’s a good bit av a braze she’s blowing now, an’ Oi think there’s more comin’.”

“Will she stand, it?”

“Av it ain’t too sthiff. It’s a roight tight litthle boat she is, an’ all we nade is to kape off shore an’ let her go.”

Beginning to feel satisfied with the behavior of the yacht, Frank felt a wild thrill of delight in the fury of the tempest. He knew something about managing a large boat himself, and he felt confidence in Barney’s qualifications as a sailor.

The moon leaped from the edge of one cloud to the edge of another, as if it, too, were running a race across the sky and taking all sorts of desperate chances.

There was the sound of sullen thunder in the tumbling sea, which swished and swirled about the little vessel like hissing serpents.

Now and then Frank strained his eyes to port, for he knew the coast lay there to leeward, and he had no fancy for suddenly coming upon some rocky point that might project far out into the sea.

He fully understood that, in case the Greyhound should become disabled, it would not take the wind long to pile them upon the shore, where the seas would beat out their lives on the rocks.

There was danger in the tempest, and it was just enough to keep Merriwell’s blood rushing warm in his veins.

“If Stanford’s yacht has found shelter in Half-moon Bay, we’ll be a hundred miles below them in the morning,” he cried to Barney.

“Sure,” agreed the Irish lad. “But nivver a bit can we hilp thot, Frankie.”

The first half of the night was wild and boisterous. Near midnight the wind fell somewhat, but it still blew so strong that the Greyhound held on its course.

Toward morning the tempest died out, and sunrise found them rolling helplessly on the long swells, without enough breeze to steady the boat.

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