“We’ll launch her to-morrow,” decided Abe that night. “I guess she’s all right.”
“Will it be hard to put her into the sea?” asked Tom.
“Easy enough, the way the derelict is listed now,” was the answer. “All we’ll have to do will be to get into her, cut the retaining rope, and let her slide. Then we’ll be off.”
Tom heard some one behind him as the sailor told him this, and he turned to see Mr. Skeel regarding him curiously. There was a strange look on the former professor’s face.
They went to rest that night filled with thoughts of the prospects before them on the morrow. It seemed, after all, as if they might be saved, for both Joe and Abe declared that they must be near some island, and a day’s sail would bring them to it, if they could sail fast enough.
Tom stretched out beside little Jackie that night with a thankful heart.
“I’ll find dad and mother yet!” he whispered to himself.
Mr. Skeel was slumbering on the other side of the shelter, at least if heavy breathing went for anything he was. Abe and Joe were out on deck, putting the spare provisions and water into the lifeboat, for they had decided to leave as soon as possible in the morning.
Tom fell into a doze. How long he slept he hardly knew, but he was suddenly awakened by feeling a hand cautiously moving over his body. It was on his chest first, and then it went lower until the fingers touched the money belt he had worn since the loss of the Silver Star.
“Who’s that? Is that you, Jackie?” asked Tom, and his hand went quickly over to the head of his little charge. Jackie was sleeping quietly.