But no such fate could overtake the lad while on the islet. The Mauretania or Lusitania or even the Olympic could not run into that collection of rocks and sand without getting the worst of it.
Now, as has been shown, Mike was really safer where he had landed, for no harm could come to him on White Island, yet his situation was anything but pleasant. He was marooned and could not leave his ocean prison without help. There was little hope of anything of the kind so long as night remained with him, but the morrow ought to bring rescue. Until then he must content himself as best he could.
But he was not the one to sit down with folded hands. Nature had gifted him with a powerful voice and he fancied he might turn it to use. A twinkling light gliding or bobbing over the water here and there showed that not all the world was asleep. His own experience told him he had neighbors. Accordingly he lifted up his voice and shouted with might and main:
"Hilp! hilp! somebody come to me hilp!"
He directed the tones toward different points of the compass, but a half hour passed, during which perforce he often rested, without any sign of success. And then he was thrilled by what resembled a lantern, twinkling from the direction of the Hypocrites to the westward. He renewed his call, and to add force to it, waved his arms and danced up and down on the rock to whose top he had climbed, though of course such antics were of no help.
Fifteen minutes removed all doubt. The light, sinking and falling with the moderate waves, was drawing nearer. Although his voice had grown husky, he spared it not.
"Right this way! Don't be afeard! I won't hurt ye! Hurry up, ye spalpeens!"
A hundred yards or so off—too far for him to see the boat or its occupants—the rowers paused. From out the gloom came the call:
"Hello there! what's the matter?"
"I'm shipwrecked! Come and take me off!"