“Here’s a tug,” said Neilson, and a minute later two tugs were struggling to pull the Marina to the side of the channel, where, if she sank, she would not obstruct the passage of other vessels. They were just in time. She touched bottom some distance from the eastern shore, and her masts stuck out of the water.
Neilson, Brady, and Merriwell looked at one another with one thought uppermost in all their minds.
“Phillips?” said Neilson, faltering. “You don’t suppose he could be on board her somewhere?”
And the next moment they all three jumped as if a ghost had appeared before them. For, climbing into the launch from the water, safe and unharmed, appeared Jim Phillips himself.
They started to ply him with questions, but Dick interrupted.
“The first thing to do is to get him to a place where he can get into dry clothes,” he said. “We’ll drop these gentlemen”—he nodded to the two marshals—“and then go up the river.”
“And get me some food, for Heaven’s sake!” cried Jim. “I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday morning!”
They wrapped him in overcoats and sweaters that were in the launch. A five-minute stop served to put the marshals ashore and to provide hot coffee and sandwiches for Jim, and then came the swift run to Red Top, which was nearer than Gale’s Ferry. There Jim was dried and provided with dry clothes, and, sitting in a comfortable chair, he told his story.
“When I got into the hold there,” he said, “I thought I was pretty safe from being discovered. And I counted on getting out when it was dark, and swimming ashore. But they were too foxy for me. They didn’t know where I was, but they figured I must be somewhere on board, and they made it impossible for me to get away as I had planned. I was pretty hungry, but I didn’t want to go out and give myself up. I don’t like to quit when I once start something.
“Finally I realized that there was only one thing to do. I had my knife, and I found an old mallet down there that some ship’s carpenter had lost. So I started in to make a hole in her side. I knew she’d sink, but I thought that I was justified, seeing the game they were up to. Moreover, I knew there would be no danger for any of them, for, even with a big hole in her, a boat of that sort sinks slowly, and I timed it so they would be out of bed and on deck.