Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/134

 blinker at work. Presently it ceased and then from here and there in the night other white throbs of light traveled across the hurtling waters. The Gyandotte's speed decreased and the tempest smote Nelson from a new angle. He knew that it meant that the ships had been ordered to change their course and run into the gale. His thoughts sped to the little submarines. He wondered if they could stay afloat in such a sea. And then, so suddenly that it had all happened before the cry of alarm was out of his throat, a wild gust threw itself upon the ship, the deck slanted until the boiling water threatened to engulf it, there was a rending crash behind the boy, something gigantic felled him and drove the breath from his body, and he knew no more.

The period of insensibility was probably brief. Perhaps less than a minute elapsed from the instant that the big funnel, torn away by the wind, crashed down upon boy and rail, until consciousness returned to him. When it did he was for the first brief moment too dazed to realize what had happened or where he was. It was the icy, breath-taking coldness that cleared his brain. He found himself rising through blackness and space, bruised, gasping, struggling instinctively, with the 111