Page:Rover Boys on Land and Sea.djvu/57

Rh quid of tobacco in his cheek. "Aint never seen no sech storm here afore. Puts me in mind o' a blow I stood out in onct off the coast o' Alaska when I was in a whaler. Thet storm caught us same time as this an' ripped our mast out in a jiffy and drowned two o' the sailors."

"I hope nothing like that happens to us," said Dick, with a shudder. He was not thinking of himself, but of the three girls in the cabin.

"Well, lad, it aint goin' to be no easy blow, I kin tell ye that," responded Captain Jerry.

Soon the wind began to whistle shrilly through the air, and the sky became so black they could scarcely see a hundred yards in any direction. Then came some distant flashes of lightning and rolling thunder, and soon the patter of rain.

"Now we are going to catch it," said Tom, and he was right. Ten minutes later it was pouring in torrents, and the rain continued to keep coming down as if there was to be no end of it.

"Boys, aren't you most drowned?" asked Nellie, peeping out of the cabin door.

"No, but you'll be if you come out here," called back Tom.

"We can't stand up and we can't sit still," came from Grace.