"The signal gun," suddenly shouted Frank. This was a small saluting cannon fixed to the after end of the cabin roof.
Quick as thought Billy and Lathrop ripped off the waterproof cover and Frank jerked the lanyard. Luckily the gun had been loaded with the idea of firing salutes as they left Galveston, but the idea had been forgotten in the excitement.
"Bang!"
Even above the storm the report sounded loudly, and the flash at least was visible.
Would the steamer notice their signal?
There was a moment of agonizing suspense--in which the boys saw death at sea in its ugliest form loom up in front of them.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "A moment of agonizing suspense."]
The towering black bows seemed to be imminent above the Bolo when there was a sudden flashing of lights on the lofty foredeck, and a voice hailed through the night:
"Motor-boat ahoy!"
The adventurers shouted back at the top of their lungs.
Suddenly the black form of the great vessel, pierced by scores of lighted portholes, seemed to glide away from the Bolo, and, with a rush and roar as the waves smashed against her lofty steel sides, the big vessel raced by.
Gazing far above them the boys could see a uniformed figure on the bridge shouting questions through a megaphone. He was, no doubt, inquiring what sort of lunatics they were whom he had so narrowly escaped sending to the bottom.
"A miss is as good as a mile," was Ben"s comment when they all breathed more freely, "but no more misses like that, thank you."
CHAPTER XVII.
BILLY"S NARROW ESCAPE.
By daybreak the fury of the hurricane had blown itself out and the sun rose on a sea that while still storm-tossed was moderate compared to the terrific upheaval of the preceding night; by noon, in fact, so suddenly did the wind drop, the Bolo was nosing her way along through what seemed a glittering, sunlit desert of almost perfectly smooth water.
"Let"s get the lines out and troll; we might catch a shark," was Billy"s sudden suggestion.
"Right you are," a.s.sented Bluewater Bill. "There"s lots of them in these waters--savage critters, too. It"s a charity to catch them."
Suddenly he broke into song:
"Oh, sharks have teeth and whales have tails, Cows have horns and so have snails, But of all the fish in the ocean blue The very worst is the green gaboo."
"What on earth is a gaboo?" demanded Frank, who with the others was lolling about the c.o.c.kpit under the awning, which had been re-rigged.
"Why," said Bill, scratching his head, "a gaboo is--well now, let"s see--ah, yes, a gaboo is a good rhyme for blue."
"If you do anything like that again we shall have to hold a court-martial and have you thrown overboard to feed your gaboos,"
laughed Frank.
"Well, that"s what you call poetic license," protested Bill.
"From now on, yours is revoked," declared Frank, "but, seriously, Bill, do you know anything about shark fishing?"
"Do I?" demanded the old sh.e.l.lback. "Well, when I was in these very waters in the Scaramouch we caught one with a bit of pork that weighed--the shark, I mean, not the pork--I forget just what, and wouldn"t say, for fear you might think I was prevastigating, but it was twenty-four foot long."
"Oh, come, Bill, not twenty-four," protested Harry.
"That"s what it was," stoutly a.s.serted Bill, rummaging in a locker for a shark-hook.
"Why, the biggest shark recorded is only eighteen feet in length,"
protested Billy.
"Don"t know nothing "bout records, Master Billy, but I do know that this yar varmint was twenty-four."
"Did you measure him?" asked Frank.
"Not much," snorted Bill, "he"d have measured us, and we"d have soon measured our length if we"d tried. But now if any one has a bit of fat pork, I wouldn"t be a bit surprised but we can fish up one of them finny monsters."
Accordingly a bit of pork was secured from the galley stores and placed on the shark-hook, a huge affair as big as the hook used to hang meat on in butcher shops. To its hank was shackled a bit of stout chain, about two feet long. To this, Bill affixed a stout rope, and let the line trail out astern about fifty feet.
"Now, Billy Barnes, since you was so skeptical, you hold the line, and, when you feel a tug, take a turn around the cleat here or he"ll yank you overboard."
"Yank me overboard," cried Billy, incredulously. "Oh, get out, Bill!
What do you think I am--an old woman?"
Bill said nothing, but cut himself a big bit of chewing tobacco and stuffed it into his face. Frank would not have allowed such a habit on the Bolo, but he felt as he had deprived the old sailors of their pipes, he could not cut off every luxury, so Bill was allowed to chew in quiet content.
"Isn"t this bully, just going right ahead like this after all the terrible things that happened in the night!" exclaimed Harry, as the Bolo cut along through the placid waters.
"Great," agreed Frank, "and yet I am glad in one way we ran into that blow. Ben Stubbs a.s.sured me that we were not likely to get anything worse in these lat.i.tudes, and the Bolo stood up to it as if she had been a clipper."
"Yes; she certainly is a fine little ship," agreed the others.
All at once there came a yell from Billy Barnes.
The startled boys look up just in time to see him yanked bodily out of the c.o.c.kpit, over the counter and into the sea. To their horror, when he struck the water he vanished; only to reappear a few seconds later, however, with his head above the surface, and moving through the water away from the boat at a terrific rate.
"Good heavens, what has happened!" exclaimed Frank, horror-struck at the scene. The others were white and too unnerved at the sudden accident to speak.
Only Bill and Ben Stubbs kept their heads.
"Let go of the rope," they bellowed.
Billy gave a despairing look back and then was rushed onward through the water at a greater speed than ever.
"What is it--what has happened?" repeated Frank.