"Down in the cabin. Tommy is sick, he is. Please; that's a good man."
"Ahoy, down there, let some one catch the girl when I throw her."
Then, addressing the officer in charge of the boat, he said: "If you don't mind, sir, you need not wait for me. There's someone else below, I hear. I'll go for him and then I'll catch the other lifeboat."
The girl was safely caught, and, acting on Dan's suggestion, the officer ordered the oarsmen to give way together.
"Cutter, wait for me!" cried the lad, dashing along the lee side on his way to the cabin. The master of the "Oriole" had already gone over the side, and was now on the way toward the battleship, with his wife and daughter and nearly a dozen exhausted sailors from the schooner. Unfortunately for Dan, the officer in charge of the cutter did not hear Dan's shout, but a few moments later gave the command to return to the battleship, Sam being in the boat.
"Hello, Tom!" shouted Dan, half running, half falling down the companion way into the main corridor of the schooner's cabin.
He stumbled into water that reached above his knees.
"Tom! Tom!" he cried.
There was no response. Dan dived into the little cuddy. The cuddy lamp was burning, swaying widely with each roll of the ship, shedding a faint light over the stuffy room, for everything had been closed up tightly to keep the water that was now everywhere in the ship from drowning out the master's quarters.
A sewing basket, with a half-completed piece of work beside it, lay on the table, while two bunches of bananas hung suspended from the rudder casing.