Page:A Sailor Boy with Dewey.djvu/42

30 the hurricane abated. As is usual in this locality, the storm let up as quickly as it had gathered. The rain stopped and the wind dropped all in a few minutes, and in less than an hour the sun was shining down upon us from a cloudless sky. The sea, however, still ran dangerously high.

"Do you see anything?" I asked of the second mate, as he balanced himself on one of the middle seats and took a careful look about the horizon.

"Nothing," was his disheartening answer. "Not a sail or a small boat in sight."

"Then the other boats must be lost," and my heart sank again.

"Perhaps not. The wind during the night may have carried us miles apart."

We knew we must be a good distance from land, but we also knew that we were somewhere to the westward of Luzon, so the only thing to do was to, steer a course due east and trust to sight the shore before our provisions gave out.

We had on board but two articles, a keg of ship's biscuits and a keg of water. Several other things had been put into the small craft, but these had either been washed overboard or ruined by the salt water which I had bailed out.

"By close economy we can make the biscuits last three days, and the water about as long," announced the second mate. "We ought to make