"Well, lad, what is it?"
"I have not seen my friend Dan Davis since the boats returned, sir," he said.
"What's that?"
"I find that Davis did not return in either the whaleboat or the cutter. He went back to save some one that the girl begged him to save. I've made inquiry and learn that the somebody was a miserable parrot."
"Seaman Davis on that schooner?" demanded the captain in a startled voice.
"Yes, sir, I think so, sir."
"And we have shot the decks from under him with our seven-inch guns!" groaned the captain.
He immediately ordered that the searchlights try again to pick the schooner up. But no search revealed her. By reason of the violence of the gale, the battleship, for her own safety, had been compelled to steam some distance away. But she lay to throughout the night, and only when the early daylight revealed nothing of the schooner was she headed for the Delaware Breakwater.