“Yes! yes!” said Frank. “Poor Sam! What would his mother say if he was drowned!”
The sloop came around with difficulty and for the moment threatened to swamp herself. As the water rolled up, Hockley gave a groan of terror.
“Don’t, please don’t!” he whined. “We’ll all go to the bottom next. Head her for land!”
“Cling fast and you will be safe,” answered Professor Strong, who was as cool as ever, although deeply concerned over Sam’s welfare.
“But we’ll go down—I know we will,” pleaded the lank youth.
“We are bound to save Sam, so shut up,” cried Mark, getting angry. “Sam may be nothing to you but he is a good deal to us,” and thereupon Hockley became silent, although he shivered with fear every time the sloop made an extra heavy lurch.
In the midst of the wind and rain it was hard to follow the back course correctly and without knowing it they passed far to the westward of where Sam had gone overboard.
“I can’t see a thing,” remarked Mark, after a painful silence lasting nearly quarter of an hour.
“Nor I,” returned Frank.
“It’s raining too hard to see much,” came from Darry.