"What ship is that?" called the officer in charge of the small boats.
"The 'Oriole.'"
"Where from?"
"Rio de Janeiro. Cargo of mahogany."
"Pass a line."
A rope shot over the whaleboat and was quickly made secure. Slowly the whaleboat was pulled as close to the schooner as it was safe to go. At the command of the officer in charge, half a dozen sailors climbed up the rope and leaped to the deck of the "Oriole."
Dan Davis was the first man over the rail.
"How many persons have you on board?"
"Twenty men, a woman and a child. The latter are my wife and daughter," the master of the craft informed him.
The woman, lashed to the deck house, was clinging to her child, a girl of some seven years.