Nan was aroused by this. She glanced wildly around. They were a long way off Lighthouse Point, at the entrance to Freeling Inlet, and the storm was coming in such a direction that they must be driven up the lake and away from the Hall boat-landing--if, indeed, the canoe were not immediately swamped.
"Let go the sheet, Bess! Let go the sheet!" was Nan's first cry.
"Goodness me! And the pillow cases, too, if you say so!" chattered Bess, clawing wildly at the rope in question.
But she had tied it in a hard knot to the cleat, and the more she tried to pull the knot loose, the tighter it became.
"Quick! quick!" Nan cried, trying to paddle the canoe around.
She understood nothing about heading into the wind's eye; Nan only realized that they would likely be overturned if the wind and sea struck the canoe broadside.
The storm which had, at first, approached so slowly, now came down upon the canoe at terrific speed. The wind shrieked, the spray flew before it in a cloud, and the curtain of rain surrounded and engulfed the two girls and their craft.
The sail was torn to shreds. Nan had managed to head the canoe about and they took in the waves over the stern. She was saturated to the very skin by the first bucket of water.
Bess, with a wild scream of fear, cast herself into Nan's arms.
"We'll be drowned! we'll be drowned!" was her cry.
Nan thought so, too, but she tried to remain calm.
The water fairly boiled about them. It jumped and pitched most awfully.
The water that came inboard threatened to swamp the canoe.
Peril, Nan had faced before; but nothing like this. Each moment, as the canoe staggered on and the waves rose higher and the wind shrieked louder, Nan believed that they were nearer and nearer to death.
She did not see how they could possibly escape destruction. The sea fairly yawned for them. The canoe sank lower and lower as the foam-streaked water slopped in over the gunnels. _They were going to be swamped!_
CHAPTER XIV
IN THE NICK OF TIME
Bess Harley clung to her chum in an agony of apprehension. Perhaps Nan would have utterly given way to terror, too, had she not felt herself obliged to bolster up poor Bess.
The wind shrieked so about the two girls, and the roar of the rain and sea so deafened them, that Nan could offer little verbal comfort. She could only hug Bess close to her and pat her shoulder caressingly.
Then suddenly Nan seized the bathing cap from her chum's head, and, pushing Bess aside, began to bail frantically with the rubber head covering. The rain and spray were rapidly sinking the canoe, and to free it of the accumulation of water was their only hope.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear, Nan!" groaned Bess, over and over.
Nan had no breath left for idle talk. She bailed out the water as fast as she could. The canoe was too water-logged already to be easily steered. The sea merely drove it on and on; providentially it did not broach to.
"Throw out the cushions!" Nan finally cried to her chum. "Throw them out, it will lighten the canoe a little."
"But--but we'll have to pay for them," objected Bess, for perhaps the first time in her life becoming cautious.
"Do as I say!" commanded Nan. "What are a few cushions if we can save our lives?"
"But we _can't_! We're sure to drown!" wailed Bess.
Nan was not at all sure that this was not true. She would not, however, own up that she thought so.
"You do as I say, Bess!" she ordered. "Throw out the cushions! Never mind if we drown the next minute!"
"You--you are awful!" sobbed Bess.
Nevertheless, she jerked the cushions out over the side. One after the other they floated away. Then Nan was suddenly stricken with fear. Maybe she had done the wrong thing. By the way the cushions floated they might be of cork and if worse came to worst, they might have been used as life-preservers.
But the canoe was lightened. Nan unhooked a chair-back amidships and threw it overboard. All the time she was bailing faithfully. After being thus lightened, the canoe began to rise upon the waves more buoyantly.
Perhaps, however, that was because the rain had passed over. The driving sleet-like fall of it had saturated the two girls in the canoe. They could be no wetter now--not if they were completely engulfed by the rising sea.
The violence of the wind had actually beaten the sea down; but behind the squall, as it swept on, the waves were rising tumultuously.
"This won't last long--it _can't_ last long," Nan thought.
She raised her eyes to look about. The darkness of evening seemed already to hover upon the bosom of the lake. The boat-landing and boathouse were both out of sight. On the crag-like bluff the Hall was merely a misty outline, hanging like a cloud-castle in the air.
Bess was crying steadily. Nan thought of her mother and her father, so far away. If anything happened to her they would be a long time finding it out.
And there was Uncle Henry and Aunt Kate and the boys! They would feel very bad, Nan knew, if anything happened to her. So would Toby Vanderwiller and Mrs. Vanderwiller and Corson. And perhaps queer little Margaret Llewellen and her brother, Bob----
Was it the spray, or did tears fill Nan Sherwood's eyes so that she could see nothing moving on the face of the wild waters? Yet, of a sudden, there came into hearing the sharp, staccato report of an engine exhaust.
"A motor boat!" Nan gasped, still bailing desperately.
The sputtering noise drew nearer.
"Oh, Bess!" Nan cried.
"Oh, Nan!" responded her chum.
"Do you hear it?"
"It's that boat," Bess said, sniffling. "If they only see us!"
"Can you see them?"
Nan could not stop bailing. Every now and then a wave would slop over the side and the canoe would settle deeper in the lake.
Bess climbed unsteadily to her knees. Hope revived in her breast. She wiped the spray out of her eyes with the back of her hand and stared all about. Yes! there was the darting motor boat.
"It's Walter!" she cried to her chum.