“All together—heave!” cried Joe, and they worked the craft farther up on the derelict.
“There’s an axe!” cried Tom, as the bottom of the lifeboat became exposed, when the water ran from her through the rents and gashes. “That will come in handy.”
“That’s what,” agreed the sailors.
Now that they had their prize secure, they turned their attention to the passenger who had so unexpectedly come to them. He seemed to be still unconscious, but Tom, feeling of his wrist, detected the movement of a pulse.
“He’s alive,” he said.
“Then the sooner we get the water out of him the better,” spoke Abe. “Though I don’t believe he got much into him, for he was sitting high in the boat, and she hadn’t shipped so very much.”
Then they began to work over the unconscious man, Tom thinking meanwhile of the irony of fate that had again thrown him into contact with the character in whose life he had played so strange a part.
“He’s coming around,” announced Joe, after a bit.
“Yes, I guess so,” assented Abe.
The man sat up. His eyes roved about as though he could not understand where he was. He looked first at Abe, then at Joe, and then sought little Jackie, who was seated on the highest part of the derelict where Tom had sent him. Then the gaze of the man went to Tom’s face.