Then, with the unexpectedness that is the greatest danger of these off-shore gales, the wind changed once more. It snapped around in a moment to due west. The cross seas lashed the yawl impetuously.
Whistler heard an oar snap. The man behind him fell upon his back in the bottom of the yawl. His broken oar entangled with Whistler's, and the latter lost stroke.
There was a yell from the ensign. Whistler heard Al Torrance shriek. The next moment the yawl rolled completely over, and he was struggling in the sea and in the pitchy darkness underneath the overturned boat!
Whistler kept cool in his mind. As far as his body went, that was icy.
He knew that, after all, he was personally in less danger than those who had been thrown far from the boat. He could hear nothing of what went on outside; the rolling and plunging of the overturned yawl continued.
Where had Torry gone? And the ensign, and the other members of the yawl's crew? Once Whistler had spent a long time in the sea, drifting about on a hatchcover; having been saved from that perilous adventure, he was not likely easily to give up hope now.
There was air enough under the overturned yawl, and he knew her water-tight compartments would keep her afloat indefinitely. But there might be work for him to do outside.
He might help the other members of the shipwrecked crew. Therefore he filled his lungs with air and dived under the side of the yawl.
Just as he came out into the open sea he collided with another person coming down. They seized each others' hands and rose to the surface.
It was Torry! When they popped up and expelled the air from their lungs and blinked the water from their eyes, each boy instantly recognized the other.
"Crickey!" coughed Torrance. "I thought we'd lost you."
"Just as all right as a fellow can be when he--he can't walk ashore," chattered Torry.
"Here's the yawl!" cried Whistler. "Where's Mr. MacMasters? And Rosy and Slim? And the others?"
But when his eyes were well cleared of the water he beheld the entire crew of the yawl, including Ensign MacMasters, perched along the yawl's keel like a string of very much bedrabbled crows on a rail fence.
Strangely enough the gale seemed to have lulled for the time. Having done its worst to them, it gave the unfortunate castaways a breathing spell.