Before the first officer could answer her unspoken inquiry Ruth’s sharp eyes glimpsed a light over his shoulder. It was an intermittent sparkle, and it was low down on the water. She remembered then the light she had seen for a moment when she had first come on deck after learning that the ship was abandoned.
“What is that?” she whispered, pointing.
Dowd wheeled to look. Instantly she saw by the light of her torch that he stiffened and his head came up. He gazed off across the water for quite two minutes. Then he said:
“It is a light in a small boat I believe. At first I thought it might be a submarine. But I do not believe a submarine would show anything less than a searchlight in traveling on the surface at night.”
“Oh! Who can it be?” murmured Ruth.
“You put a hard question, Miss Fielding. Surely it cannot be our friends coming back.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a boat sent by Captain Hastings to make sure that nobody was left on the steamship.”
“Do you consider that likely?” she asked.
“Well—no, I do not,” he admitted.