They were impatient, eager in their desire to see what had happened. Of a sudden that cruiser, floating so serenely upon the water, seemed a thing of refuge, something of permanent stability in this world which had suddenly swung over on a slope, where skyscrapers careened drunkenly and crashed into showers of rock dust and twisted steel girders.
They found that the explosive had done its work. There was a great jagged hole in the building, against which the water lapped with gurgling noises.
“Now to get her out,” said Phil. “We’ll have to have power of some sort!”
But he had reckoned without the force of the current. Already an eddy had been created in the water, and the cruiser had swung broadside, the keel at the bow scraping along the tile floor of that which had been a display room.
“The first thing is to get aboard, anyway,” he said.
He took the girl’s arm, piloted her down the inclined floor to the side of the boat, found that the side of the deck was too far above water for him to reach.
“I’m giving you a boost!” he said. And he shifted his grip to her knees, gave her a heave, and sent her up to where she could scramble to the deck. “Now see if there’s a rope,” he called to her.
“One here,” she said.
“Okay, fasten one end and throw over the other end.”
She knotted the rope, flung it over.
“You and the emergency stuff next,” said Phil to the scientist, and he grasped him, swung him out into the water, sent him up the rope, flung up the sack, grasped the end of the rope himself, pulled himself to the deck.
“Well, well, here’s a boat hook, all lashed into place, and there’s a little boat with some oars, all the comforts of home!” he laughed. “I took a cruise once, down the coast of Mexico. Some of the other fellows got seasick, but I didn’t. It was a small yacht, and the motion was just like riding a bucking bronco. I was used to it.”
And he untied the boat hook, an affair of mahogany and polished brass. “All spiffy,” he said. “Well, folks, here we go out to sea!”
And he caught the boat hook about one of the jagged girders of twisted steel, and leaned his weight against it. Slowly, the boat swung from the eddy which was circling in the half-submerged room, and slid its bow out to the opening.
Almost at once the current caught them, whipped the bow of the boat around. The stern smashed against the side of the building with a terrific jar. The impact knocked Phil from his feet.
He rolled over, grasped at a handhold, gave an exclamation of dismay. He felt sure the shell of the craft would be crushed.
But she was strongly built, the pride of the corporation that had kept her on display, and her hull withstood the strain. She lurched over at an angle, and the water rushed up the hull, then she won free, and they found themselves out in the center of the stream of water, rushing forward, buildings slipping astern.
“We’ve got to find some way of steering her,” yelled Phil. “If the current throws us against one of those buildings we’ll be smashed to splinters. Can we start the motor?”
The scientist made no reply. He was too busy taking observations.
It was the girl, standing in the bow, who screamed the warning. The boat was swinging in toward the ruins of a collapsed structure. Just ahead of it a new building was in the course of construction, and the steel girders, thrust up through the black waters, were like teeth of disaster, thrust up to receive the boat.
In the office where it had been on display the boat seemed a massive thing. Out here in the swirling waters it seemed like a toy.
Phil Bregg ran forward.
“How much rope is there?” he asked.
“A whole coil of the light rope. Then there’s a shorter length of the heavy rope.”
Phil nodded.
“I’ll show you how we handle charging steers in the cattle country when we get a loop on ’em.” he said.
His bronzed hands flashed swiftly through the making of knots. He swung the rope around his head, let the coil gain momentum, and swung the loop out, straight and true.
It settled over the top of one of the girders. Phil swung a few swift dally turns around the bitts in the bow, shouted to the girl to get the heavier rope ready.
Then the rope tautened, the craft shifted, swung broadside, and the rope became as taut as a bowstring.
Phil eased the strain by letting the rope slip slightly over the bitts, then, when he had lessened the shock, made a reversed loop, holding the line firm.
The current boiled past the bow. The line hummed with the strain.
“Maybe we can hold it here, for a while, anyway. The heavy rope will serve when we can get a chance to drop it over. There’s a winch here, and I can probably run the boat in closer.”
He turned to look behind him, and grinned, the sort of a grin that an outdoor man gives when he realizes he is facing grave danger.
“Looks like we’ve got to stay right here. If we break loose we’re gone!”
And he pointed to a place where a building had collapsed, forming an obstruction in the current. The water fell over this like a dam, sucked in great whirlpools which gave forth an ever increasing roar.
A small boat, sucked into those whirlpools, would be capsized or crushed against the obstruction, and those who were thrown into the current would be hurtled downward.
It was at that moment that the scientist came toward them.
“The forces of stress equalization are at work now,” he observed. “You doubtless notice the peculiar agitation of the water, the waving of the buildings... Ah, there goes our skyscraper! An earthquake of increasing violence is rocking the soil.”
The skyscraper in which they had taken refuge came down with a roar, and then it seemed as though the boat was shaken as a rat is shaken by a terrier. It quivered, rocked, creaked. And the skyline flattened as by magic. Buildings came down with an accompaniment of sound which ceased to be a separate, distinguishable sound, but was a vast cadence of destruction, a sullen roar of terrific forces reducing the works of man to dust.
Where one had seen the more or less ruined skyline of a city, there was now only a turbulent, quake-shaken sea of heaving water and plunging debris.
And on the horizon loomed a vast wave, a great sea with sloping sides, a mighty wall of water that came surging toward them.
“Quick,” yelled Phil, “down in the cabin and close everything. It’s our only chance.”
And he pushed at the girl and the scientist, got them down the little companionway into the snug cabin. He followed, closed the doors, shutting out a part of the undertone of sound which filled the air.
The interior was littered with advertising matter relating to the seaworthy qualities of the little craft, the completeness of the equipment which was furnished with it.
A sign, scrolled in fancy lettering, carried the slogan of the company: “Craft that are ready to cruise.”
“Maybe there’s some gasoline in the—”
Phil had no chance to finish. The boat swung. There was a jar as the mooring line parted, and then they were thrust upward, and upward. The boat veered, rolled, and went over and over like a chip of wood in a mill race. Everything that was loose in the cabin was plunged about. There was no keeping one’s feet.
Phil felt his head bang against the cooking stove, struggled to right himself, and his feet went out from under him. His head slammed against the floor. The craft rolled over and over, and Phil lost consciousness.
Chapter 4
Rushing— Where?
He was aware of a slight nausea, of a splitting headache. He could hear voices that impinged upon his consciousness without carrying meaning. Slowly, bit by bit, he began to remember where he was. He remembered the disaster, the earthquake, that last wild rush of the tidal wave.