CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
DRIFTING.
"Help, ahoy, look out!" sang out Bob and Dick in chorus, well-nigh paralysed with fright.

"Ahoy there, look out ahead!" But, in spite of their cries, the phantom ship, whose proportions became all the more magnified the nearer she approached, rose upon them steadily out of the mist, growing into a gruesome reality each second, her hull towering over the little cutter as she bore down upon her, like a giant above a pigmy! "Help, ahoy, look out there!" they once more shouted frantically.
"Help--ahoy!" It was all in vain, though, their shouts and cries being unnoticed.
The next moment the on-coming vessel struck them, fortunately not end-on or amidships, but in a slanting fashion, her cutwater sliding by the gunwale of the cutter, from bow to stern, with a harsh, grating sound and a rasping movement that shook their very vitals--the little yacht heeling over the while until she was almost on her beam-ends.
Had the vessel caught her midships, she would have at once crushed her like an eggshell; as it was, the fluke of one of her anchors, which was hanging from her bows ready for letting go in case of emergency, the barque being not yet clear of soundings, got foul of the cutter's rigging, sweeping her mast and boom away, the stays snapping under the strain as if they were packthread.
Poor little cutter! She was left a complete wreck and nearly full of water; still rocking to and fro from the violence of the collision, even after the craft that had done all the mischief had again, seemingly, re- transformed herself into a phantom ship and faded away in the mist that hung over the sea, like the creation of a dream! It was a very bad dream, though; and Bob and Dick gave themselves up for lost altogether.
Their fate, drifting helplessly about, an hour or so before, hungry and miserable, had seemed desperate enough; but their slight sleep, with the subsequent awakening to the knowledge that the wind had sprung up again and was bearing them once more in some certain direction, had restored their courage and revived their hopes.
This courage, too, had became more courageous, this hope more hopeful on the approach of the barque; for, they believed she would take them on board and restore them by and by to their friends, advancing so gallantly as she did towards them, like an angel, so Dick thought.
But, now! What were the calamities which they so recently bewailed in comparison with the present?
Then, the yacht might have been at the mercy of the mist and tide; but she was still staunch and sound, capable when a breeze blew once more of wafting them home--whereas, now, the little cutter was dismasted and water-logged, nay, even sinking for all they knew! Thus, their present position was a thousandfold more terrible than the one before.
But, still, only boys though they were, hope did not yet quite desert them.
The indomitable courage of youth triumphed over disaster.
For a few seconds neither could speak.
However, when the ship had disappeared, going away as silently as she had approached them, they bestirred themselves to see what damage the cutter had sustained.
Bob was the first to recall his scattered wits.
"Well, they haven't sunk us, as I was afraid they would, Dick!" said he.
"I wonder if any of the planks are really started ?" "How can we see, Master Bob ?" asked Dick anxiously.

"So as to know if she be all right ?" "Why, by baling her out," he answered.

"If we lessen the water in her, then we'll know she's all right." "But if the water don't go down ?" "Then, _we_ will!" replied Bob rather curtly.

"Have you got anything to bale her out with ?" "Well, Master Bob," observed Dick, grinning, "fur a young gen'leman as is so sharp, you've got a orful bad mem'ry! Don't 'ee recollect the booket as ye helped me fur to wash down the decks wi' this very marnin' ?" "Dear me, Dick, I declare I quite forgot that!" said Bob, with a laugh, seeing Dick's grin; for, it was not so dark now in their immediate vicinity, the breeze having lifted the fog slightly from the surface of the water.