All at once Joe uttered a shrill cry:
"That big fellow yonder. It's coming right for us."
"By dunder, dot's right," shouted Captain Nelsen, who, clutching the rail of the bridge, stood by the lad's side. "Hard over midt your helm dere, boy."
Joe spun the wheel over, but as he did so it suddenly turned loose in his hands.
A cry of consternation broke from his lips:
"The tiller ropes are broken!"
Nat echoed his comrade's alarmed shout. As for Ding-dong, he turned white under his tan.
The "Nomad" rolled helplessly in the trough of the now aroused seas, while at a distance of not more than a few hundred yards the nearest of the immense waterspouts was roaring down upon her. For an instant they looked dismayed into the grim face of danger.
It looked as if there was not a chance of their escaping from being engulfed by the monster spout. In this emergency even Captain Akers stood irresolute. It was clear that he was nonplussed by the nearness of the peril.
Nat was the first to regain his wits.
"The saluting cannon—quick!"
He had recalled in a flash of inspiration having read in some book of voyages that a shot will sometimes shatter a waterspout.
He was by no means certain that it would work out in practice, but the plan in their present desperate situation was well worth trying, at all events.
The saluting cannon was bolted to the starboard side of the bridge. A full charge of powder, placed there when she had arrived in Santa Inez with the idea of firing a salute, was in place. All that was needed was some missile to ram home on top of it, for, of course, the charge was blank.
The chest with its collection of metal and wood odds and ends still lay close at hand. They had been too disgusted to touch it that afternoon. Right on top was a big slug of iron, which had been used on the "Nettie Nelsen" as a weight for the sounding line. It was the work of an instant with Nat to ram this home in the cannon and place a wad of canvas in on top of it.
The others watched him in silence. Only Captain Akers and Captain Nelsen had any idea of what he was after, and they deemed it more prudent to say nothing that might interrupt the lad.
The waterspout was now terribly near. Its roar was deafening and its mighty crest was hidden in an aurora of mist and spray. Big, angry waves rolled and tossed at its squirming base.
Swinging the cannon round on its pivot, Nat aimed the weapon full at the advancing spout. With a silent prayer he jerked the lanyard that fired the charge.
Nat aimed the weapon full at the advancing spout.
Bang! A red flash of flame split the gloom.
Bang!
A red flash of flame split the gloom as the missile sped.
"Hang on for your lives!" came simultaneously a shout from Captain Akers.
It was lucky for them that they took the advice. Down on their faces, clinging to the lowermost rail of the bridge, they all flung themselves, Joe leaving his useless wheel.
As the weight with which Nat had loaded the cannon struck the waterspout, shattering it as if it had been made of glass, the mighty structure broke in a gigantic cascade of water. To the boys, clinging with might and main to the rails, it appeared as if the bottom had fallen out of the heavens, letting down tons of green water. The force of the torrent drove the breath out of their bodies and choked and stunned them with its pressure. Beneath them they could feel the "Nomad" tremble from stem to stern at the shock. Mingling with the roar of the descending mass of fluid came a shout of dismay from Sam Hinckley at his engines.
In the emergency there had been no time to warn him. The firing of the gun had been the first intimation he had received that anything unusual was going on forward.
He had started up the stairway from his engine room as he heard the sharp report, only to be met by an inundation of water that swept him backward among his engines, gasping, half drowned and with the clothes ripped almost off his back.
But despite all this, the "Nomad" had been saved by Nat's quick wit. The other waterspouts waltzed past her, roaring furiously, but not one of them touched her, and when, after they had passed, the semi-suffocated crew struggled to their feet and surveyed the havoc about them, the waterspouts were already some distance off, whirling eastward on their destructive course, surrounded by their gloomy pall of dusky cloud.
The sea behind them was white and angry, and upon it the "Nomad," crippled by her useless steering gear, bobbed about like an empty bottle. It was some time before her company recovered their wits sufficiently to take stock of what had happened. When they did, they could not refrain from laughing at the ridiculous appearance they all presented, Sam Hinckley most of all.
The only garment left him was half a pair of trousers. The force of the wave had torn off the rest. Moreover, in the tumblefication in the engine room, a big can of black grease had torn loose and Sam, in his struggles, had come in contact with it, plentifully bedaubing himself with the inky stuff.
"We look like a lot of drowned rats," laughed Nat.
"And I f-f-f-f-f-f-feel like one," sputtered out Ding-dong ruefully.
"Well, get below and into dry clothes," ordered Captain Akers, "and then brew some good hot coffee. In the meantime we'll see what damage has been done and then get into dry togs, too."
The damage, on examination, proved to be serious enough. The "Nomad's" boat had been torn off her davits and only a few splinters suspended by the "falls" remained to show that she had once hung there. A ventilator had also been smashed and a port light stove in.
"Thank goodness we've still got the portable boats," breathed Nat, "or we would be in a fix, indeed."
"That's so," agreed Captain Akers, "but as things are we must be thankful it isn't any worse. Any one of us might just as easily have had a limb broken as not."
"I guess the first thing to be done is to reeve a new tiller line," said Joe.
"Yes, indeed," agreed the captain. "We must be off our course now. Suppose you boys get to work at once at that, while Sam and I take stock of the engine room and get the pumps going. Sam says there is a foot of water in his domain."
The boys knew where the supplies were kept in a locker in the afterpart of the cockpit, and they soon had a new tiller rope adjusted. By this time Sam and Captain Akers had ascertained that the engines had sustained no damage but a short circuit of the ignition apparatus. It would take some time to fix this, however, so it was decided to lay to for the night.
But on the anchor being lowered it was found that even by joining the longest cables on board together no bottom could be reached. They were in the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean. Miles of blue water lay under their keel. Infinite vastnesses of depth, almost unthinkable in their profundity.
The knowledge gave the boys a little shudder, but soon more practical thoughts ousted their mysterious feelings.
"What are we to do?" asked Joe. "If we don't anchor, we shall drift miles off our course."
"Why, let's up sail and take a spin under canvas for a while," said Captain Akers. "It will give us a chance to see how the 'Nomad' behaves under her auxiliary power."
This was voted an excellent plan, and accordingly, the masts were soon gotten out of their receptacles and the sections of which they were composed fitted together. Of itself this gave the "sticks" a rigid construction, but they were also provided with steel wire stays, which, by means of turnbuckles, could be tautened like piano wires after they had been hooked into their places.
This done, all that remained was to hoist the canvas and get under way once more. The sails were two leg-of-mutton shaped canvases, with a small jib in the bow to balance the large after-sail.
"Donnervetter," exclaimed Captain Nelsen, when the sails were in place and began to "draw," "dis iss vere I am righdt at my home, by Yupiter. Idt feels a whole lot more natural to be under canvas dan sailing aroundt on a marine gasolene stove."
"In that case you can take the wheel," laughed Nat, "for I don't know a whole lot about steering a sailing vessel."
Accordingly, the captain assumed the helm, while the rest went below to give what help they could in overhauling the engines.
The captain hummed a merry old sea tune to himself as the sails filled and the "Nomad" began to forge ahead. By his side stood Cal Gifford, whom we have rather lost sight of recently. The fact is, that Cal at sea was by no means so self-assertive a person as Cal ashore. The former stage driver had been suddenly plunged into, what was to him, an entirely novel and somewhat harrying existence.
The "Nomad," answering her helm like a race horse, made good headway, and in the meantime the party in the engine room labored unceasingly. At last all was declared in readiness to test the engine. But when Sam operated the mechanism that should have resulted in starting the motor they did no more than turn over lazily, with a sort of hoarse cough, and then stop dead.
Again and again he tried to start them, but they stubbornly resisted.
"Take a look at the carburetors," suggested Nat.
Sam bent over one of the brass mixing chambers and then looked up with an odd expression.
"Queer," he said; "no wonder the engines wouldn't start. No gasolene."
"No gasolene!" echoed Captain Akers. "We must examine the tanks at once. There should be a supply enough to last for several weeks more."
"It can't have leaked out, or we'd have smelled it," said Joe.
"No," said Captain Akers, who looked rather worried, "the tanks are provided with out-board drains, so that in case of a leak no gasolene can get into the boat and cause an explosion."
A brief examination of the main tank served to confirm the fear which had already formed itself in Captain Akers' heart.
Through a big leak, caused where a seam had ripped open under the strain of the exploded waterspout, the precious driving fluid of the "Nomad" had nearly all escaped.
Worse still, the auxiliary tanks were also found to be almost emptied, their supply being fed by pressure into the main one. So large was the leak that scores of gallons had escaped into the sea by the time it was discovered.
"Then we are stuck without power to go ahead or turn back!" exclaimed Nat, voicing the general dismay.
"If you don't count the sails, which are only good when the wind blows, I guess you have hit it right, lad," said Captain Akers, very soberly.