And Captain Crouch held out a hand which Jimmy took, to find himself held fast as in a grip of iron.
"I ask your pardon, lad," said Captain Crouch. "I did you a monstrous wrong. The evidence was against you, that's true enough. None the less, I might have found out the truth before now. But I didn't. So it's up to you to forgive."
Jimmy Burke knew not what to say. Indeed, he felt a little awkward. He was undemonstrative by nature, and Crouch still held his hand.
"I ask your pardon, lad," said the captain again. "I shan't feel happy till you've told me I'm forgiven."
"Of course, sir," said Jimmy, "I forgive. And after all, it was only natural you should think as you did; the evidence was very black against me."
Crouch let go the boy's hand, and walked quickly to the head of the gangway. There he told the men in the boat below that the ship had been saved, and ordered them to ascend at once to the main-deck. After which, the captain himself hastened to the bridge, and there let loose the siren.
The loud shriek of the ship's hooter broke upon the silence of the night, to be echoed back from the Cornish hills, and to die away in the distance upon the moonlit sea. It was the signal for the other boats to return.
Time and again, Crouch sent out his message; and in between the hootings of the siren, the little, wizened sea-captain paced to and fro upon the bridge of the "Harlech" with quick and eager steps, his hands folded behind his back and his head enveloped in the cloud of smoke that issued from the bowl of his pipe. And in the meantime, His Majesty's ship "Cockroach"--a destroyer with a displacement of over nine hundred tons and a designed speed of thirty knots an hour, burning oil fuel only and armed with three four-inch guns and four torpedo-tubes--was flying hither and thither in the darkness like a mad dog in a storm.
[CHAPTER XVI--At the "Goat and Compasses"]
Presently, the regular plashing sound of oars, accompanied by human voices, rapidly becoming louder and more distinct, warned Crouch that the other boats were returning to the ship.