Hickey uttered a lusty howl. Dan saw at once that the men in the tops were unable to depress the searchlights enough to sweep the quarter-deck with the light rays.
"They don't see us, Sam. Yell louder."
"I'll have to borrow a stomach pump to jerk the salt water out of me, before I can yell any more at all. I'm afloat, inside and out, and not a compass to guide me. Where are we?"
Dan felt about him cautiously.
"I think we are astern somewhere. Judging from the position of the searchlights, I think we must be somewhere on the quarter-deck."
"How'd we get here?"
Another wave made it impossible for Davis to answer for a minute or so. When finally he had gotten his breath he said:
"I think we must have been washed here. But——"
"Say, let's get out of here, Dan."
"But how we ever dropped from the topside to the quarter-deck without being killed is more than I can figure out."