The big drops pelted the Sound like bullets, sending up splashes bigger than themselves.
Then suddenly the wind came tearing across the inland sea from out the northeast. Thunder crashed, roared, reverberated. Lightning slashed through the black cloud-canopy in long, blinding zigzags. The wind moaned, howled, shrieked, immense in its wild force, immense in its reckless fury.
A capsized sloop wallowed in the trough of heavy seas rearing a dripping keel skyward-and to this perilous perch clung Dorothy.
Chapter II
TAXI!
The black brush of storm had long ago painted out the last vestige of daylight.
Crouching on the upturned hull of her sloop, Dorothy clung to the keel with nerveless fingers, while the Scud wallowed in an angry sea laced with foam and spray. She knew that in a little while the boat must sink, and that in water like this even the strongest swimmer must quickly succumb. Cold, wet and helpless, Dorothy anxiously scanned her narrow horizon, but in vain.
For another half hour she hung on in the rain and darkness, battered by heavy combers that all but broke her hold. She was fast losing her nerve and with it the willingness to struggle. Phantom shapes reached toward her from the gloom. Strange lights danced before her eyes…
With a rolling lurch the Scud sank, and Dorothy found herself fighting the waves unsupported. The shock of sudden immersion brought back her scattering wits, but the delusion of dancing lights still held; especially one light, larger and brighter than the others. Surely this one was real and not the fantasy of an overwrought imagination!
Half smothered in flying spume, the drowning girl made one last frantic effort to keep afloat. Above the pounding of the sea, a throbbing roar shook her eardrums, a glare of light followed by a huge dark form swooped down as if to crush her-and she lost consciousness.
Dorothy awoke in a darkness so complete that for a moment she thought her eyes must be bandaged. Nervous fingers soon found that this was not the case, and reaching out, they came in contact with a light switch.
The sudden gleam of the electrics half blinded her. Presently she saw that she lay on a narrow bunk in a cabin. Presumably she was aboard a vessel, still out in the storm, for the ship pitched and rolled like a drunken thing, and the roar of a powerful exhaust was deafening.
Someone had removed her sweater, had tucked warm blankets about her body. Her throat burned from a strong stimulant which apparently had been administered while she was unconscious.
For some minutes she lay there taking in her surroundings. The charts tacked to the cabin walls, the tiny electric cookstove, hinged table and armsrack opposite. Listlessly she counted the weapons, four rifles, three shotguns, two automatics-and fastened in its own niche was a machine gun covered with a waterproof jacket. A complete arsenal… The shotguns bespoke sportsmen, but this was neither the season for duck nor for snipe. Men did not go shooting in Long Island Sound with rifles, revolvers and a machine gun… Bootleggers!
It came to her like a bolt from the blue. She was on board a rumrunner, no less, and notwithstanding the exhaustion she suffered from her battles with the waves, she found exhilaration in the exciting discovery.
Dorothy threw off the blankets, sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bunk. Her bathing suit was still wet and clung uncomfortably to her skin. With a hand on the side of the bunk to support her, she stood up on the heaving floor to catch sight of her face in a mirror screwed to the opposite wall.
"Gracious! I'm a fright," she cried. "I don't suppose there's a vanity case aboard this lugger-and mine went down with the poor little Scud!"
Then she spied a neat pile of clothing at the foot of the bunk, and immediately investigated. A dark blue sweater, a pair of trousers, heavy woolen socks, and a pair of boy's sneakers were seized upon and donned forthwith.
Dorothy giggled as she surveyed herself once more in the little mirror. "Just a few sizes too large, that's all. But they're warm, and dry, and that's something!"
She rummaged about on a shelf, found a comb and with dexterous fingers smoothed her short damp hair into place, then with a sigh of satisfaction, muttered again to herself, "Much better, my girl."
Her makeshift toilet completed, she decided to leave the cabin and continue her explorations outside.
There were two doors, one on the side and one at the end which evidently led forward. After a moment's hesitation, Dorothy chose the latter. With some difficulty, for the ship still pitched unmercifully, she stumbled forward. Then, summoning up her courage, for she was not without trepidation at the thought of facing her desperado rescuers, she laid a hand on the knob and turning it, swung back the door.
Dorothy found herself in a small, glassed-in compartment, evidently the pilot house. She had hardly time to glance about, when an oddly familiar voice spoke from out the darkness. It was barely distinguishable above the motor's hum.
"Please, Miss Dixon, snap off the light or shut the door. I can't possibly guide this craft in such a glare."
"Why, it's Bill Bol-Mr. Bolton, I mean," she cried in surprise, and closed the door.
"Himself in the flesh," replied that young man.
She could see him clearly now, seated directly before her. His back was toward her and he did not turn round. So far as she could see he seemed very busily engaged, doing something with his feet.
"Then-then it must have been you who picked me up," she stammered.
"Guilty on the first count, Miss Dixon."
"Please don't be funny," she retorted, now mistress of herself once more. "I want to thank you-"
"You are very welcome. Seriously, though, it is the boathook you have to thank. Without that we'd both have gone to Davy Jones' locker long before this."
Dorothy was nearly thrown off her feet by an unusually high sea which crashed over the pilot house and rolled the vessel far over on her side.
"Whew-that was a near one!" the girl exploded as the ship righted itself.
"We'll weather it, don't worry," encouraged Bill, though he did not feel the confidence his words proclaimed.
"It looks to me," said Dorothy soberly, "as though we'll be mighty lucky if we reach shore at all-and I guess you know it."
"Never say die, Miss Dixon!"
"Suppose we drop this miss and mister stuff, Bill. Sounds rather silly at a time like this, don't you think so?"
"Right you are, Dorothy. I'm not much on ceremony, myself, as the Irishman said when-"
"Look here, Bill!" Dorothy tossed her head impatiently, "I wish you'd omit the comedy-it really isn't necessary. I'll admit I was in a bad way when you dragged me out of the briny deep-and I appreciate your coming to my rescue. But you needn't expect me to faint or to throw hysterics. That sort of thing went out of fashion long ago. Girls today have just as much nerve as boys. They don't very often get a chance to prove it, that's all."
"Please accept my humblest apology, mademoiselle." Bill's eyes twinkled though his tone was utterly serious. "I can assure you-"
Dorothy's merry laugh rang out-her mood had passed as suddenly as it had come. "Don't be absurd. Tell me-why are you piloting a rumrunner?"
"Rumrunner? What do you mean?"
"If this isn't a rumrunner, why do you carry that machine gun and the rifles and revolvers in the armsrack?"
"Just part of our equipment, that's all."
Dorothy's impatience flared up again. "Why do you talk such nonsense?"
"Nonsense?"
"Certainly. You don't mean to tell me that you took a boat of this size on long cruises!"
Bill grinned in the darkness. "But you see," he chuckled, "this isn't a boat."
"Well, what is it then?"
"A Loening amphibian. Not exactly the stock model, for Dad and I had quite a few changes made in the cabin