The Boy Scouts for Uncle Sam Part 6

"Let's whistle for a wind," suggested Rob, who had heard of sailors doing such a thing.

"Better than doing nothing. It will fill the time in, anyway," agreed the ensign.

The boys squatted in a circle.

"What will we whistle?" asked Merritt.

"'Wait Till the Clouds Roll By,' of course," rejoined Rob.

As the plaintive notes came from the whistlers' puckered lips, Tubby sauntered up, his hands in his tunic pockets.

"What are you doing?" he asked, staring at them, "gone crazy with the heat, or what?"

"We're whistling for a wind," answered Merritt.

"Huh; why don't you whistle for grub?" demanded Tubby, turning on his heel, and striding gloomily off once more.

CHAPTER VII.

TRAPPED BY FLAMES.

Night fell and found them still in the same plight. The fog had shut in closer if anything. Since the last time they had caught the diminishing sound of the _Seneca's_ siren, they had heard no sound from any vessel.

Others besides Tubby were hungry on board the _Good Hope_ that night.

Then, too, the thought of the tragedy that had been consummated on board the derelict, and the gloom-inspiring presence of the silent figure in the forward deck house, were not calculated to inspire cheerful thoughts.

One thing they did have, and that was light. For in the course of their investigation of the old hulk they had stumbled across several old candle lanterns, the candles in which were still capable of burning. One of these lanterns was lashed to the stump of the forward mast, but the other was hung up in the cabin below. For it was in this latter place that the little party of castaways gathered and tried, by telling stories and cracking jokes, to keep their spirits in the ascendent.

But their efforts were not very successful. As the Scotch say, "It's ill jesting on an empty stomach," and that is the malady from which they all were suffering. Thirst did not as yet trouble them much, but they knew that if they were not speedily picked up by some vessel, that would also be added to their ordeal.

So the night pa.s.sed away, with the castaways watching in turn for some ray of hope of the fog lifting. It was soon after midnight, and in Rob's watch, that a startling thing happened--something that brought his heart into his mouths, and set his every nerve on vibrant edge.

The boy was sitting up forward, pondering the strangeness of the day's happenings, when suddenly, right ahead of him, as it seemed, the fog was split by the hoa.r.s.e shriek of a steamer's whistle.

Rob's scalp tightened from alarm as he leaped for the lantern.

"Look out!" he shouted at the top of his voice; "look out!"

But for reply there only came back out of the dense smother ahead another raucous call of the big steam whistle.

"Gracious! We'll be run down! We'll be sunk!" cried the boy, half wild with alarm.

He shouted to his companions to come on deck; but before they could obey, a huge, black bulk loomed up right above the derelict. Rob shouted at the top of his voice. It seemed as if the _Good Hope_ would be cut in two and that the steamer was also doomed to disaster if she struck.

Through the blackness flashed a green side-light, and then came the rushing by of the great hull, with its rows of illuminated portholes.

Rob stood stock still. He was fairly rooted to the spot with panic. But the big steamer raced by in the blackness and fog without anyone on board her ever dreaming that she had been in such close proximity to the drifting derelict.

As her stern lights flashed for an instant and then were shut out in the fog, Rob's companions came rushing on deck.

"What is it? What has happened?" demanded the ensign, readily perceiving that something very serious had occurred.

Rob, still shaky from his experience, related, as briefly as possible, just what had caused his cry of alarm.

"Well, those liners take desperate chances," commented the officer; "had they struck us, not only we, but they, would have been seriously injured."

"Gee! I wish you could have found time to ask 'em to throw us some sandwiches," said Tubby, rubbing his stomach; "I'm as empty as a dry gourd."

"I reckon we could all do with something to eat," chorused the other young "Eagles".

The ensign bade them cheer up.

"By daylight we may have a wind, and then, with the fog gone, it won't take long for some vessel to pick us up."

He spoke with a cheerfulness he was actually far from feeling. In fact, his boyish listeners were not inclined to look hopefully on the situation. By this time every one of them would have given almost all he possessed for a big pitcher of cool ice water.

"I will take the remainder of your watch, Rob," said the ensign, with a glance at his watch. "You only had a few minutes to serve anyway, and the next round of duty is mine."

"Very well," said Rob; "to tell the truth, a nap would feel pretty good.

I hope things will have cleared by the time I wake up."

The boys went below, leaving the officer on the fog-circled deck. The mist gleamed on everything, the rays of the candle-lamp making them glisten as if water had been newly poured on them. Far off the hoa.r.s.e hooting of the ship that had so nearly run them down was to be heard.

"Narrow escape, that! Narrower than I quite care to admit, even to myself," mused the young officer. "I wonder if those lads realize how bad a fix we are in. I must confess I don't like the look of things at all."

He fell to pacing the deck, and then decided to have a cigar. For this purpose he produced a perfecto from his pocket and lighted it. Then he fell to pacing the deck once more, thinking deeply. His cigar finished, he tossed it aside. Possibly it was his worry over their predicament that made him absent-minded in this regard, but instead of observing the rule of the sea to cast all such things overboard, he threw it to the deck. A lurch of the _Good Hope_ caused the glowing b.u.t.t of the cigar to go rolling across the deck and to drop into the hold below.

It was some time later that Paul Perkins came on deck to take his turn at the night vigil.

As he came forward he was startled to see what appeared to be a ghostly figure, slightly darker than the fog, slip from the forward hold and glide across the deck toward the ensign, who was pacing up and down.

Much startled, Paul called out aloud, and at the same instant a peculiar acrid odor came to his nostrils.

"Something's burning!" he cried.

Simultaneously he had come up to the side of the hatch and saw that smoke was pouring from it. What he had taken for a ghostly figure was a whirl of smoke.

"Fire! Something's on fire below!" cried the boy, dashing forward.

The ensign reached the edge of the hold as quickly. Together they peered over into the great open s.p.a.ce below. Both involuntarily recoiled with a cry of horror and alarm at what they saw.

The _Good Hope's_ hold was a ma.s.s of flames! To gaze into them was like looking into a red hot furnace.

Adrift in a blinding fog, on a burning ship, and without boats, was a predicament the like of which their adventurous lives had never before encountered!

The cigar so carelessly cast aside by the ensign had fallen upon a pile of sacking, grease-soaked and inflammable, lying in the former whaler's hold. Like all whale ships the timbers of the _Good Hope_ were literally soaked with grease, the result of whale oil and blubber. Such timbers burn like matchwood.