drenched to the skin. With the rain a sudden darkness had fallen,
and the land was entirely invisible. Frank looked anxiously towards
the shore. The sea was getting up fast, and the boat tugging and
straining at the cord of the grapnel. He shook his head. "It looks
very bad," he said to himself. "If this squall does not abate we
are going to have a bad time of it."

A quarter of an hour after it commenced the heavy downpour of
rain ceased, or rather changed into a driving sleet. It was still
extremely dark, a thick lead colored cloud overspread the sky.
Already the white horses showed how fast the sea was rising, and
the wind showed no signs of falling with the cessation of the rain
storm. The boat was laboring at her head rope and dipping her nose
heavily into the waves.

"Look here, you fellows," Frank shouted, "we must take to the oars.
If the rope were a long one we might ride here, but you know it
little more than reached the ground when we threw it out. I believe
she's dragging already, and even if she isn't she would pull her
head under water with so short a rope when the sea gets up. We'd
better get out the oars and row to shore, if we can, before the
sea gets worse."

The lads got up and looked round, and their faces grew pale and
somewhat anxious as they saw how threatening was the aspect of the
sea. They had four oars on board, and these were soon in the water
and the grapnel hauled up. A few strokes sufficed to show them that
with all four rowing the boat's head could not be kept towards the
shore, the wind taking it and turning the boat broadside on.