"So you are the Tom I came down here to rescue, are you? Well, this is a nice kettle of lobster! But you shall be rescued, just the same, Mr. Thomas—Mr. Thomas, what's your other name?"
"Lubber," answered the bird of brilliant plumage.
Dan grabbed the cage. Searching hastily about, he found a skirt, which he bound about the cage, knowing that the bird would surely be drowned on the journey to the ship unless the cage were well protected. Tom protested by sundry screeches and unseemly language, to all of which Dan gave no heed.
"We must get out of here. The boat will get tired of waiting for us, and we're not going to stay here and drown," said Dan.
The lad, having bound the cage to his satisfaction, ran up the companionway. As he reached the deck a great wall of water swept over him, a ton or more of it pouring down the open hatchway ere he could get it closed. For a moment he held on desperately, unable to see or hear, for the water that enveloped him.
The wave passed and Dan staggered toward the stern, holding to the rail that was now half submerged under a foaming sea.
"Lifeboat, there!" he called as he neared the stern.
There was no response to his summons. Dan repeated his call, but his voice sounded weak and feeble in the roar of the storm. At last he reached the stern and, during a lull in the rush of water, peered over. The cutter was not there. Running to the other side, he looked over, but he saw nothing but a waste of tumbling sea.
For a moment the Battleship Boy stood clinging to the rail in a dazed sort of a way. Then the truth dawned upon him.
"They have gone back to the ship without me," he groaned. "I have been left on a sinking ship. Even if they discover my absence it will no doubt be too late to come to my rescue before this old tub goes down. Tom Lubber, it begins to look as if you and I were bound for Davy Jones's Locker at a twenty-knot gait."