It was a pleasant afternoon; none of the boys felt any touches of seasickness now, and many of them were walking up and down the deck, some taking their comfort under awnings spread aft near the cabin companion, and some being on the bridge watching the steersman or looking out to sea in search of sails or noting the flight of the gulls and other seabirds or studying the movements of the dolphins playing around the bow, there being many of these lively creatures about.
Dick and Jack were on the bridge whence they could obtain a full view of the deck and look all about them, ahead and astern, and on all sides, Jack greatly enjoying gazing out upon the wide expanse and searching the horizon for sails or a hazy view of some distant island.
Below, on the quarter deck, which was guarded by a low rail only, was young Jesse W. Smith, who took great pride in his full name and always insisted upon being called by it, for whom primarily this expedition had been gotten up, strutting up and down in sailor's trousers and shirt, seeming to feel as if he were the commander of the entire southern fleet.
"There's young Jesse, enjoying himself and seeming ready to say with the fellow in the poem that he is monarch of all he sees," laughed Dick.
"That was supposed to be Alexander Selkirk, the original Robinson Crusoe, Dick," said Jack. "The line is 'I am monarch of all I survey.' You must have recited it more than once in your younger days. That is not altogether a safe place for young Jesse W., though. That rail is not very high, and if we should happen to give a roll——"
"You don't think there is any danger, Jack! Hadn't you better warn him!"
"No, but I will go down and——" and Jack started to go to the main deck and speak quietly to the boy. But before he had hardly said the words there was a sudden startled cry and Jack, looking down quickly, saw that the very thing he had feared had taken place.
How it came about no one knew, but all of a sudden there was a loud cry of "man overboard!" and Jack saw the boy just going down in the water.
He was on the lower deck in a moment, and in another had thrown aside his coat and kicked off his shoes, running to the rail as he did so.
The cook had just been killing chickens on the forward deck, and was going aft with two or three fowls in one hand, a knife in the other.