When the wave had passed, Dan was gripping the deck house, gasping, for he was almost choking with the salt water he had swallowed. He was still clinging to the bird.
"Come, Tom, we had better go below," he said, quickly raising the hatch, letting it fall over him with a bang as he leaped down into the corridor that led to the cuddy. But, quick as he was, a flood of salt water poured down with him. For a moment Dan seemed to be swimming in it.
"Tom Lubber, it strikes me that the safest place for you, just now, will be in your old billet up there. If you are going to be saved, I guess some one else will have to do it. I do not seem to be an entire success as a life saver."
The bird-cage was placed on its hook, after which the lad stripped the covering from it, bringing from the parrot a chorus of protests and scornful epithets.
Dan curled up on a bunk, leaning against a bulk-head. He was dripping wet, but to this he gave no thought. He did not even realize that such was the case. He was wondering how long it would be ere the old schooner would take a plunge to the bottom of the ocean.
"It must be a long way to the bottom," decided the Battleship Boy. "I shan't know when we reach there, anyway, so what's the odds how far it is? Perhaps it would be better for me to jump overboard and put a quick end to it. Yet," he reflected, "while I am alive I am alive. I guess that's good sense, and it gives me an idea."
For several moments the boy was lost in deep thought.
"If the rudder is still in place I may be able to do something that will ease matters a little. Of course I do not know how much water there is in the hold. Perhaps the bottom has been burst open, and all that is keeping us together is the lumber. I'm going to make an investigation, at any rate. I wonder if they have discovered my absence on board the battleship?"
They had not discovered his absence. In boarding the battleship with the rescued crew the whaleboat had been wrecked, as had its mate in starting out. One of the rescued men was drowned in the sea just as he was reaching for a rope that had been cast to him by a sailor on the deck of the warship.