“Straight ahead, sir,” was the answer of the lookout.
“Can you make her out?”
“Seems like a rowboat full of people!” was the answer.
The Captain called the mate to the wheel and sent the messenger for his glasses, then he went forward himself and made a careful examination of the little dot on the water to which the lookout had called his attention. The glass revealed the fact that there was a small mast in the boat, although she carried no sail, at which a flag was flying upside down, evidently as a signal of distress. Meantime the Chairman and Mr. Miller had come up and joined the Captain in the bow, and it was decided to keep the vessel right on her course until they reached the boat ahead of them.
“They must have had to abandon their ship somewhere outside,” remarked the Chairman, “and, when the wind changed after the storm, they had to row against it to make for shore.”
“Yes,” answered the Captain, who still had the glasses up to his eyes. “I caught a glimpse of an oar just then, in the sunlight, but they can’t have more than two, and it’s a long pull they have ahead of them in a rough sea, with a load like that.”
“I suppose they are making for Nantucket, but that must be fourteen miles off, and they couldn’t possibly get there before nightfall.”
So they talked back and forth until gradually they began to make out more and more distinctly the details in and about the boat and its crew.
Chippie was standing near by as the conversation between the Chairman and the Captain took place. He immediately ran off to find Tom and Dick and tell them the news, which spread like wildfire all over the ship; and it was as much as the boys on watch could do to attend to their regular duties without stopping frequently to peer at the little boat in the distance ahead of them.