The Motor Girls on the Coast: or, The Waif From the Sea

CHAPTER XX
THE STORM

“Jack Kimball, I knew we stayed too late! Now look over there!” and Cora pointed to the west, where a bank of dark and angry-looking vapor piled up in contrast to the lighter-hued clouds that had caused apprehension earlier in the day.

“That’s right–blame it all on me–even if it rains!” protested Jack. “You wanted to stay as much as we did, Sis.”

“Well, perhaps I did,” admitted Cora. “But really we should not have stayed so long. I am afraid we will be caught in the storm.”

“Do you really think so, Cora?” asked Belle, and she could not keep a quaver out of her voice.

“If I’m any judge we’re in for a regular old – ”

“You’re it, old man!” and Walter interrupted Ed, who was evidently on the verge of making a dire prophecy concerning the weather. “Don’t scare ’em any more than you have to,” went on Walter in a low voice, nodding at the girls in the Pet. “We may have our hands full as it is.”

“Do you think so?”

“Look at those clouds!”

It was enough. Indeed all were now anxiously scanning the heavens that seemed to grow blacker momentarily. The little party, after having had lunch on the beach of the smaller cove, around the lighthouse point, were now on their way back in the two motor boats, and Cora, with a look aloft, had made the observation to Jack that opened this chapter.

“Well, turn on all the gas you can, Sis, and we’ll scud for it,” called Jack to his sister. “We may beat it out yet. If not, we can go ashore almost any place.”

“Except on the rocks,” spoke Cora. “The worst part will be round the point, in the open sea.”

“Oh, we’ll do it all right,” asserted Norton, confidently. “The wind isn’t rising much.”

The boats were close enough together so that talking from one to the other was easy. They were headed out toward the open sea, and as Cora guided her craft she could not help anticipating apprehensively the heavy rollers that would be encountered once they were out of the land-locked shelter. But the bow of the Pet was high. She was a good craft in rough weather, and as for the hired Duck, she was built for those waters.

“Let’s be jolly!” proposed Jack, for a glance at the girls in their boat had showed him that they were on the verge of hysterics. “Strike up a song, Ed.”

“Give us Nancy Lee,” suggested Walter.

“Nancy!” exclaimed Cora. “I wonder where that other Nancy is?”

“No telling,” declared Eline. “Oh dear! I hope it doesn’t rain. This dress spots so!” and she looked down at her rather light gown, which really she ought not to have worn on a water picnic. Cora had said as much, but Eline–well, it must be confessed that she was rather vain. She had good clothes and she liked to wear them, not always at appropriate times.

“It won’t rain!” asserted Jack. “Go ahead, Ed–sing!”

“‘Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep’ would be most appropriate,” voiced Norton. “We are rocking some.”

It was indeed getting rougher, and the motor boats bobbed up and down on the long swells. But as yet none had broken over the bows. Cora dreaded this, not because of any particular danger, but because of the effect it would have on her chums, particularly Belle, who, try as she might, could not conquer her nervous dread of the water.

The boys started a song, and the girls joined in, but a sudden dash of spray over the Pet’s stem brought a scream from Belle that made a discord, and they all stopped.

Jack, who was steering the Duck, stood up and looked ahead. They were approaching the point around which they must go to reach their own cove.

“Can we do it, old man?” asked Walter, in a low voice.

“We’ll try,” answered Jack, equally low. “If we give up now the girls will get scared. We’ll keep on a bit longer, and see where we come out.”

“Can’t you get a bit nearer in shore?” asked Norton.

“It’s risky,” said Jack. “It’s low tide now, and while this old tub doesn’t draw much there are a lot of rocks here and there, sticking almost up at low water. If we hit on one of them we’ll be in the pot for fair. The only thing to do is to stand out, and trust to luck. Once around the point we’ll be all right.”

“They’re coming in,” said Walter, nodding toward Cora and the others.

“Keep out! Keep out!” cried Jack. “It’s dangerous.”

“But the girls want to land!” cried his sister.

“You can’t now. The shore is too rocky. You’d pound her hull to pieces. Keep on around the point. The storm won’t break for half an hour yet.”

Rather reluctantly Cora put the wheel over. Yet she recognized the truth of what Jack had said. It would be dangerous to go ashore there. And to turn back was equally out of the question, since the wind was rising. It was at their backs, and to turn in the heavy sea now running might mean an upset. To face the waves, too, would be dangerous. The only chance lay in keeping on.

Jack’s prophecy about the storm was not borne out. With a sudden burst of wind, that whipped the salty spray of the waves over those in both boats, and a sprinkle of rain that soon became a downpour, the tempest broke.

The girls screamed, and tried to get under some bits of canvas that Cora had brought along to cover the engine. But the wind was so strong, and the rain so penetrating that it was of little avail.

“Head her up into the waves!” cried Jack. “Take ’em bow on, Cora!”

“Of course!” she shouted back, and gripped the wheel with tense fingers.

A little later they were out on the heaving ocean. Fortunately the point cut off some of the wind, and, having the gale at their backs helped some. But the two motor craft, separated by some distance now, had no easy time of it.

“Oh–oh!” moaned Belle.

“Be quiet!” commanded her sister. “Look at Eline!”

Eline was calm–that is, comparatively so.

“But–but she can swim better than I.”

“Swim! No one will have to swim!” said Cora, not turning around. “I wonder what’s the matter with that man?” and she pointed to one in a dory, who seemed to be signalling for help.

Then there came a further burst of the storm, and the rain came down harder than ever.

CHAPTER XXI
THE WRECK

“There must certainly be something the matter with that man!” exclaimed Cora. She had fairly to shout to be heard above the noise of the wind and rain.

“Well, we daren’t stop to see what it is,” said Belle. “Oh, do go faster, Cora! Get in quiet water! I am getting seasick!”

“Don’t you dare!” cried Bess. “Think of–lemons!”

“I’m going to see what is the matter,” declared Cora. “He’s waving to us!”

“What about the boys?” asked Eline.

“They don’t seem to see him. Besides, they’re past him now, and it would be risky to turn back. I can easily pass near him.”

The man, who was in a power-driven dory, was waving and shouting now, but the wind carried his words away. He seemed to be in some difficulty.

“Why doesn’t he row in out of the storm?” asked Bess.

“Perhaps he has lost his oars,” suggested Eline.

“Maybe that is the trouble,” remarked Cora. “Well, we’ll soon see.”

She changed the course of the Pet, though it was a bit risky for the seas were quartering now, and the spray came aboard in salty sheets. But the girls could not get much wetter.

Cora slowed down her engine by means of a throttle control that extended up near the wheel. She veered in toward the tossing dory.

“What is it?” she cried. “What’s the matter?”

“Out of gasoline! Can you lend me a bit so I can run in? I came out to lift my lobster pots, but it’s too rough.”

“Gasoline? Yes, we have plenty,” said Cora. “I’ll give you some.”

“Don’t come too close!” warned the fisherman. “Can you put it in a can and toss it to me? That’s the best way.”

“I’ll try,” promised Cora, as she cut off all power. The Pet was now drifting, rising and falling on the swells. Belle looked very pale, and Bess was holding her.

“Find something, and run some gasoline into it from the carbureter drip,” directed Cora, as she clung to the wheel.

“What shall I find?” asked Bess.

“Would an empty olive bottle do?” asked Eline.

“The very thing!” cried Cora. “Has it a cork?”

“Yes, and one olive in it.”

“Throw out the olive, and poke your handkerchief down in the bottle to dry it out before you put in the gasoline. Even a drop of the salt water the olives come in will make trouble in the gasoline. Hurry!”

“Look out!” cried the fisherman. “Fend off!”

“You’d better do it!” directed Cora. “We have no boat hook!”

“All right, I’ll attend to it.”

The two boats were drifting dangerously close together. The fisherman caught up an oar he carried for emergencies, and skillfully fended off the Pet, which was drifting down on him. In the meanwhile Bess, with the help of Eline, had dried out the olive bottle, and had filled it with gasoline.

“What shall I do with it?” she asked Cora.

“Throw it to the man.”

“I never can throw it.”

“Then give it to me,” and, holding to the wheel with one hand, with the other Cora tossed over the bottle of gasoline. The lobsterman caught it, called his thanks and gave the Pet a final shove that carried her past him.

“Can you crank her?” asked Cora to Bess, nodding toward the engine.

“I’ll try!”

It needed three tries, but finally the motor started, and the boat surged forward again. Cora, bringing her head up to the seas, noted that Jack had started to turn around to come back to her, but, seeing that the Pet was under way again, had gone on his own course.

The wind continued to blow, the rain never ceased and the storm increased apace. But finally, after a battle with the elements that made the hearts of the girls quail, they passed the lighthouse point, and shot around into the quiet and wind-protected waters of the bay. A little later they were chugging into the even calmer cove.

“Oh Cora! So frightened as I have been!” exclaimed Aunt Susan, as the dripping girls trooped up the hill to the bungalow. “Oh, what a storm!”

“But we weathered it!” laughed Cora, shaking back her damp hair. “It was a bit scary at first, but we came out all right. It was fun at the finish.”

“I’m never going out again when it’s cloudy!” declared Belle. “Never!”

“Oh, you’ll get used to it,” said Eline.

Dry garments, hot tea, and supper coming in the order named restored in the girls their natural happy dispositions. But the storm continued. It grew worse as darkness advanced, and the wind rose to a gale. The rain came down in torrents, and the boys, in spite of rain coats and umbrellas, were drenched a second time in the short trip from their bungalow to that of the girls, when they came to pay a visit.

“It’s a wild night,” declared Jack, as he and his chums got ready to go back, about ten o’clock.

“There must be quite a sea on,” said Ed.

“I wouldn’t want to be out in it,” remarked Walter.

“And I beg to be excused,” came from Norton.

“Think of the poor sailors,” said Eline, softly.

“I tell you what I’d like to do,” observed Jack.

“What?” Ed wanted to know.

“Go over to the lighthouse. It must be great up in the lantern room in a storm like this.”

“Don’t you dare to go!” cried Cora. “It might blow away.”

“No danger,” said Jack with a laugh. “But I’m not going. Another thing we might do.”

“What?” demanded Norton.

“Go out and find a beach patrol. We could walk up and down with him, and maybe sight a wreck.”

“Oh, don’t speak of a wreck!” begged Bess. “A wreck on such a night would be dreadful.”

“This is just the kind of a night when they have wrecks,” observed Ed, as a blast of wind and rain shook the bungalow.

As the boys were going out into the storm there came a dull report, reverberating on the night air.

“What was that?” gasped Cora.

“Sounded like a gun,” said Jack. “Maybe a ship at sea – ”

There was a flash in the sky. It was not lightning, for there was no thunder storm.

“See!” exclaimed Eline.

“The lighthouse,” ventured Norton.

“The light is over there,” and Ed pointed to the flashing beacon in a different direction.

“Then it’s a rocket from some ship in danger,” declared Walter. “There goes another!”

It was unmistakably a rocket that went cleaving through the blackness. It came from off the lighthouse point.

“Some ship is in danger, or maybe off her course,” spoke Jack. “Well, we can’t do anything, and there’s no use getting any wetter. Come on to bed, fellows.”

“Oh, the poor people–if that is a wreck,” murmured Bess.

“If it was only daylight we might witness some rescues,” said Cora. “But at least let us hope it is nothing serious.”

It was Rosalie who brought the news next morning. Through the driving rain she came to the girls’ bungalow, her face peering out from beneath a sou’wester that was tied under her chin, her feet barely visible beneath the yellow oilskin coat.

“There’s a wreck ashore!” she cried. “I thought maybe you might like to see it! It’s out in front of our light, and they’re bringing the crew ashore!”

“Can they save them?” asked Cora, clasping her hands.

“Most of ’em, I guess. Want to come?”

“Of course we’ll go!” cried Eline. “The boys won’t want to miss this!”

CHAPTER XXII
THE RESCUE

Green masses of foam-capped water hurling themselves on the sand–thundering and pounding. A spray that whipped into your face with the sting of a lash. The wind howling overhead and picking up handfuls of wet sand, scattering them about to add to the bite of the salt water. The rain pelting down in torrents. A dull boom, repeated again and again. The hissing of the breakers. And, out in the midst, out in a smother of water, gripped on the sharp rocks that now and then could be seen raising their black teeth through the white foam was the ship–a wreck.

It was this scene that Cora, the other girls, and the boys saw as they hurried out to the lighthouse point. And it was one they never forgot.

They had hurried out when Rosalie brought the news that in the storm of the night a three-masted auxiliary schooner had come too far inshore despite the warning of the light.

“Father was up all night tending the lantern, too!” she shouted–she had to shout to be heard above the roar. “I helped him,” she added. “But in spite of it the schooner worked in. She couldn’t seem to steer properly. We could see her red and green lights once in a while. Then the current caught her and nothing could save her. She went right on the rocks. Her back’s broke, Captain Meeker of the life guards said.”

“Can they save the people?” Cora inquired, as she pulled her raincoat more tightly about her, for the wind seemed fairly to whip open the buttons.

“They’re going to try,” answered the lighthouse maid. “They got some of ’em off in the motor life-boat early this morning, but it’s too rough for that now.”

“What are they going to do, then?” asked Bess.

“Use the breeches buoy. It’s the only way now!” cried Rosalie. “They’re going to fire a line over soon.”

“We don’t want to miss that,” declared Jack.

The wreck had gone on the rocks nearly opposite the lighthouse that guarded them. In this case the guardianship had been in vain, and the sea was hastening to wreak further havoc on the gallant ship.

The boys and girls trudged down to the beach through sand that clung to their feet. They could see the life-savers getting their apparatus in order, and near them were huddled some men–evidently sailors.

“Those are the men who were rescued from the ship,” said Rosalie. “There are more on board, and some passengers, I heard. Some women and children, too!”

“How terrible!” gasped Belle. “Oh, I don’t see how any one can take a long voyage. I am so afraid of the water.”

“I don’t blame you–not when it acts this way,” spoke Eline. “It makes me shudder!”

The big green waves seemed to be reaching hungrily out for those on the strand, as though not satisfied with having wrecked the ship. The waters fairly flung themselves at the men whose seemingly puny efforts were being directed to save those yet remaining on board.

“Is the ship’s captain among them?” asked Walter, pointing to the group of sailors.

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Rosalie. “He’ll be the last one to leave. They’re always like that. My father was a captain once,” and she seemed proud of the fact, though now she was glad that her father was safe in the staunch lighthouse.

“That’s so, I forgot,” remarked Walter. “The captain is always the last to leave.”

“But I thought women and children came first in a rescue at sea,” suggested Ed.

“The women and girls–I heard there were some girls,” went on Rosalie, “wouldn’t get in the boat. They were afraid. Of course the breeches buoy is safer, but look how they have to wait. She may go to pieces any time now.”

“It’s dreadful,” said Cora, in a low voice.

She and her companions drew closer to where the life-savers were at work. The boys and girls were wet, for the rain penetrated through coats, and umbrellas were impossible. But they did not mind this, and Mrs. Chester had promised to have hot coffee for them when they got back to the bungalow. She had refused to go out to look at the wreck.

“I just couldn’t bear it!” she had exclaimed with a shudder.

The guards were burying in the sand a heavy anchor to which the main rope of the breeches buoy would be fastened. The other end would be made fast to the highest part of the ship, so that the person being pulled ashore in the carrier would be as far above the waves as possible. The three masts had been broken off, but the jagged stump of one stuck up, and could be seen when there came a momentary lull in the rain.

It was not very cold, though much of the heat of summer had been dissipated in the cool rain.

“If it was winter, how terrible it would be,” said Eline. “Sometimes I have seen lake steamers just a mass of ice.”

“Yes, there is something to be thankful for,” Cora agreed. “Oh, they are going to fire, I think.”

She pointed to where some of the men were setting the mortar, or small cannon, which is discharged to send a line to stranded ships. The mortar fires a long, round piece of iron, to which is fastened a light, but strong, line. When this falls aboard the vessel a stronger rope is hauled from shore by means of it.

“Yes, they’re going to shoot!” agreed Jack. “They must have trouble keeping their powder dry.”

Bess covered her ears with her hands and cried:

“Oh, if they’re going to fire I’m going to run!”

“Silly! It won’t make much noise!” exclaimed Norton. “They don’t use a heavy charge.”

“I don’t care. I’m going to – ”

But Bess did not have time to do anything, for at that moment the captain pulled the lanyard that set off the mortar. The report was loud enough, though partly smothered by the storm.

“It fell short!” exclaimed Rosalie, who was watching intently. “See, it fell into the water!”

“Does that mean they can’t make the rescue?” asked Belle, in an awed voice.

“Oh, no, they’ll fire again,” answered Rosalie.

A guard was hauling in on the line, which had the weight attached to it. Soon it was in the mortar again, the line coiled beside it in a box in a peculiar manner to prevent tangling.

Once more the shot was fired.

“There it goes! It’s going to land this time!” shouted Rosalie in her excitement. A shout from the group of rescued seamen, in which the life guards joined, told that the shot had gone true.

Then began a busy time–not that the men had not worked hard before. But there was need of much haste now, for it was feared the vessel would break up. Quickly the heavy line was sent out and made fast. Then the breeches buoy was rigged, and in a little while a woman was hauled in from the wreck.

“Poor thing!” murmured Cora. “We must help her. She is drenched.”

“Yes, we must do something!” cried Belle.

“We’ll take her up to our kitchen,” proposed Rosalie. “There’s a good fire there, and I’ll make coffee.”

The woman was helped out of the buoy, and the motor girls went to her assistance. She seemed very grateful. She was the wife of one of the mates, and he was not yet rescued.

“I will stay here until Harry comes ashore!” she declared, firmly.

“And you know he won’t come, Mrs. Madden, until the rest of the women is saved,” explained one of the seamen. “Go with the young ladies. That is best,” and she finally consented.

In a short time several other women and two girls came ashore, one much exhausted. But by this time a physician had arrived, and he attended to her in the lighthouse.

Then the remainder of the sailors were brought from the wreck, the first one to get ashore reporting that no more women or girls remained aboard.

“There was one girl,” he said, “but she seems to have disappeared.”

“Washed overboard?” asked Cora, with a gasp.

“I’m afraid so, miss. It’s a terrible storm.”

Finally the captain himself was hauled off, and he landed amid cheers from the brave men who had helped save him. He said the vessel was now abandoned, and would not last another hour. In less than that time the wreck was observed to have changed its position.

Then amid the upheaval of the mighty seas the ship broke in two and was soon pounded into shreds of wood by the terrible power of the storm-swept ocean.

The shipwrecked ones were cared for among the different fishermen, some staying in the lighthouse and some in the quarters of the life-savers. The storm kept up harder than ever, and soon Cora and her friends decided that it would be unwise to stay out longer in it. So they sought their bungalows.