The Dragon dipped down deeply into the pale green waves. Then, when it seemed the small ship would surely be swallowed up, it rose again. From time to time, Sarah and Gus, sitting in the bow, grabbed the belaying pins thrust in the side to keep from being thrown off.
“It’s just like a roller coaster, isn’t it?”
“Roller coaster?” Gus puzzled. “What’s a roller coaster?”
Sarah did not feel up to explaining. She had suffered a touch of seasickness ever since the Sleepers, accompanied by their new friend, had set forth in this ship. Gus had done as he promised. He had produced the gold and convinced Captain Benbow to take them all to their destination.
Gus hung onto the ship until his long skinny fingers turned white. “Shouldn’t wonder but we’d go down pretty soon now,” he remarked. “Doesn’t stand to reason that a ship like this could take much more of a beating.”
“Gus, why don’t you look on the bright side of things?” Sarah groaned.
“The bright side. I guess the bright side is if we all get drowned at sea. Then we won’t have to worry about what happens when we get to land.”
Sarah could not help but laugh at him.
Gus suddenly changed the subject. “I hope Josh gets over his seasickness quick. I never saw anybody turn green like he did.”
“I know. I’m worried about him,” Sarah said. She looked up at the sky then and said, “You think it’s going to storm?”
That was the wrong question to ask Gus. He always thought it was going to storm. “The question is,” he said sadly, “how bad is it going to storm?” He took off his hat, and the wind blew his lank hair. “I’d say, offhand, it’s going to be a pretty bad one.”
Gus’s words proved to be prophetic. The Sleepers, the crew, and the captain alike all grew apprehensive as the waves grew higher and the sun was hidden for two days.
Captain Benbow stood at the wheel, talking to his first mate, a forbidding man with a sour expression. “Never seen it this bad, Asmin.”
“No, Captain. Neither have I. And I’ve been out in all these waters. I told you it would happen, though. Remember?”
“Now don’t start that superstitious nonsense, First!”
“Call it what you want,” Asmin said, and his lips drew into a twisty line. “I told you it was bad luck to take these people on. I felt it in my bones right from the start.”
Deep down Captain Benbow was beginning to agree with his first mate. Their passengers had not been a troublesome lot, though, he thought. No drinking. No loud noise. They kept to their cabins, only rarely coming topside even before the storm began. Now the captain’s face grew troubled. “We can’t keep up sail like this for long. It’ll rip the sticks right out of her.”
The storm continued another day and night. It was impossible to eat from a plate. The tables, which were fastened to the floor, tilted at a right angle. Nothing would stay on them.
Josh, who was stricken the worst with seasickness, could not eat anything. Sarah had taken water to him—or tea, when it had been possible to light a fire. But right now, all she could do was cling to a mess hall table as the ship rolled and tossed, indeed like a roller coaster.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Dave said soberly. “The ship surely can’t take much more of this.”
Reb, who hated ships anyway, said glumly, “I wish we’d never gotten on this ship. I wish we’d gone overland. It would have taken longer, but we wouldn’t be in a mess like this.”
Gus was not looking any too well himself, Sarah thought. His long face had turned slightly greenish.
“You see that ring?” he asked, holding up his hand. “I don’t suppose I’ll survive this voyage. If any of you do and have a chance, I wish you’d get it back to my old mother.”
“Oh, stop it, Gus!” Jake snapped. “We’ll get out of this all right.”
He had no sooner spoken than suddenly the door to the mess hall opened, and the captain came in along with the first mate. Behind them were four sailors, for some reason all armed with pistols.
“What’s the matter, Captain?” Gus cried out. “Is it pirates?”
“No, it’s not pirates,” Captain Benbow said. He bit his lip and seemed reluctant to say more.
“What is it, then, Captain? Is the ship going down?” Sarah asked in alarm.
“It’s going down if we don’t get rid of you people,” Asmin said roughly.
“What can you be talking about?” Abbey cried. She looked at the sailors. “And they’ve got pistols in their hands. What is going on?”
“Well,” Captain Benbow said and could not meet her eyes, “it’s like this. We sailors tend to be a superstitious lot. Too much so, I suppose. But it comes down to it that none of us has ever seen a storm like this before.”
Dave suddenly said, “Wait a minute! You’re not trying to say the storm is our fault!”
“Well, it’s not our fault!” the first mate growled. “We never had anything like this until you people got on board!”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to put you out in the longboat,” the captain said quietly.
“Why, you can’t do that, Captain! It would be the same as murder!” Dave said with horror. His eyes were big.
“If we don’t do it, all of us are going to perish in this hurricane!” Captain Benbow said. “Arguing about it won’t do any good. We’ll do the best we can for you. We’ve got the boat ready, we put food in it, and water. Now get your gear. You can take all you want. The boat’s big enough to hold it.”
“But we’re not sailors!” Josh protested.
“Then you shouldn’t have come to sea!” the first mate said coldly. “Now get a move on!”
There was no help for it. That was evident. The Sleepers saw that the captain could not be moved. When the men were gone, Dave said, “We’d better take all the gear. We’re going to need it if we ever make it to land.”
An hour later, the longboat was swung over the side of the Dragon and quickly lowered into the water, where it was immediately tossed about wildly by the wind and the waves.
As the captain cast off the lines, he said, “You’ll be all right if you head east. You’ll make it.” Sarah thought he was trying to be kind.
“Nice of him to be so thoughtful of us,” Jake growled. Then he looked up at the mast. “Do we put up sails or what?”
“Just a little one,” Gus said. “Otherwise the wind would tear it right off and tear the mast off too. No doubt it will anyway.”
“Are you a sailor, Gus?” Sarah asked him, hopefully.
“Oh, I’ve made a voyage or two. Not likely we’ll survive, but we’ll do the best we can until we go down and feed the sharks.”
Reb glared at him but said, “Just tell us what to do. I didn’t survive dragons and sabertoothed tigers to drown out in this here ocean.”
Gus proved to be a rather good sailor. He knew which ropes to pull. He knew which ones to release. At last they managed to get up a small amount of sail.
“Now,” Gus said as he seated himself at the tiller. “Might as well settle back. We got a little traveling to do. I only hope a whale don’t come up under us and shatter the bottom.”
Happily, a whale did not come up, and after a long battle with the waves, Jake looked overhead and said, “Look. There’s a patch of sky!”
“And the wind’s not blowing so hard, either!” Dave exclaimed. “I believe we’ve made it.”
“Be careful about sayin’ things like that,” Gus called back to him. “Life isn’t all sassafras and succotash, you know. Might be another typhoon coming just over there.”
But Gus’s dire warnings proved unfounded. Within an hour, the clouds had begun to break away, and feeble rays of sun began to enlighten the sea. The raging whitecaps died down into long, slow rollers, and Gus steered the longboat over them expertly.
“Do you know which way we should be going, Reb?” Sarah asked.
“Now that I can see the sun I do. We head that way, Gus. Due east.”
“How far is it?” Abbey asked faintly.
“Got no idea,” Gus said. “Bound to be a long way, though.”
Sarah was sitting next to Josh. “We’ve got a chance, Josh,” she told him. “We’re going to be all right. Goél has seen us through again.” She hesitated, then asked, “Are you feeling better now?”
“I’m not as seasick. But, Sarah, I’ll tell you exactly what I told Reb earlier. I can’t lead the Seven Sleepers anymore. Ever.”
Sarah opened her mouth to argue, but she saw a look of determination on Josh’s face and said no more.