“No,” cried Ruth, gripping the rail till the knuckles of both hands showed white, “there he is again! See? One of the life preservers has reached him. He can hold on now.”
“The boats are making good time,” said Tom, behind her. “He’s as good as rescued now.”
“Wonder who it is,” said Chess, and an obliging pleasant-faced man behind him volunteered the information:
“Old chap named Knowles. He was standing near the rail when we grazed the shoal——”
“Oh, so that’s what we heard below decks!” cried Helen.
“Yes’m,” said the stranger. “There was a grinding shock, if you remember, and this old boy was jarred loose from his hold on the rail and went overboard.”
The passengers watched with interest while the first lifeboat reached the elderly victim and lifted him aboard. The men in the other boats, seeing that the work of rescue had already been accomplished, turned back toward the steamer.
“Poor old fellow,” said Ruth commiseratingly. “The shock and the exposure are enough to kill an elderly man. I wonder,” she added thoughtfully, “if I couldn’t get him to take some of the tonic I have in my medicine kit. It might ward off a serious illness.”
Tom grinned.
“There’s the Red Cross nurse on the job again,” he said.