Down, down, down, down, through seemingly endless space they sank with that intolerable strain on their arms and the blood pounding madly at their temples.
Down, down, down!
Ned ventured a hasty glance below him. There swung the big Cunard liner not a quarter of a mile away. There raced the lifeboats filled with jackies in white, bending rhythmically to and fro, while the long oars glistened like silver in the morning sun. A raucous blast of encouragement from the liner’s whistles half stunned the senses.
Ned closed his eyes again. It seemed as if he had been hours floating down through the air. Had it not been for the stout cords which secured his blue, swollen wrists to the handle of the parachute, he could not have kept his hold.
Hearty shouts—English words—resounded almost beneath him. A little puff of wind carried the parachute off a hundred yards to one side and then it began sinking again.
Ned felt something icy cold lave, submerge and rise higher and higher up around his body. It was the waves.
Up they crept, first to his ankles, then to his thighs, then above his waist, then closed around his neck. The parachute collapsed, but the pneumatic life-jacket buckled around him buoyed Ned up. The spray buffeted saltily against his mouth and smarted in his eyes. His body became numb from the chill of the icy water. Then—
“All aboard there, mates!” shouted gruff, cheery voices, and strong hands seized upon Ned and dragged him half-insensible into the lifeboat. Alan and Buck were already huddled shivering there, and Bob was rescued a few minutes later.
Propelled by the powerful arms of sixteen sailors, the lifeboat fairly leaped over the waves toward where hundreds of curious, pitying faces lined the taffrails of the big liner.
“Where are you bound?” asked Bob of the boatswain.