“Yes, if the bounding wave isn’t too close,” modified Joe. “I was altogether too near it when we were tossing about in that small boat just before we were picked up. I know now how it must feel to be a castaway.”
“With lots of sharks nosing around and trying to upset the boat,” Jimmy added to the picture.
“Too cold up here for sharks, I guess,” observed Bob. “But even without those little playfellows swimming about, it’s bad enough. It’s mighty good to feel these solid planks under your feet.”
“You boys feeling any better now?” asked Ensign Porter, entering the cabin.
“Better and fuller,” answered Bob, with a laugh. “You see what we’ve done to the table.”
“I see you’ve done your full duty,” was the answer. “Now, I suppose, the next thing is bed. I’ve had a cabin prepared for you young fellows, with four bunks, so that you can be together.”
He sent the steward off with the rescued members of the crew to the sailor’s quarters, and then led the Radio Boys to a comfortable cabin, which, while not very large, was sufficiently so for all their needs.
“The captain will see you in the morning,” Mr. Porter said, as he bade them good-night. “You can come then to some definite understanding about the immediate future.”
It did not take the boys long to undress and slip into their bunks. In the excitement of the last few hours, it had seemed to them as though they would never want to sleep again. But now nature asserted her rights, and they realized that they were enormously weary.
Luckily, in the time that had elapsed between the first alarm and the sinking of the steamer, they had been able to rescue the suit cases and other belongings from their cabin, and it was some satisfaction as they laid out their clothes to know that they would not have to appear before the captain the next morning in the wrinkled and disreputable raiment in which they had come on board.