“Stand by!” shouted the captain of the steamer to Tom. “There’s a dozen passengers left yet.”
“There’s room with crowding, if you can get them aboard,” reported Tom.
“Life preservers, all!” roared the captain. “One more lurch like that, and she’ll split in two! Lower the men passengers.”
“No need,” shouted back Tom just then, as a dazzling light rounded the North Sentinel.
“The steam tug!” cried Bill.
“That will serve us. We’re all right now,” declared the captain. “Get the women passengers ashore.”
With a yell just then a great bulky form came shooting over the side of the steamer. It was the fussy old man. Tom barely managed to grasp something floating behind him, or the suction of the passing tug would have drawn him under the swiftly revolving steam screw.
“I’m drowned! I’m dead!” bawled the man, half choked with salt water, as Tom pulled him to the deck of the launch, to find that as many as six life preservers encumbered his bulky form.
The steam tug had approached the Olivia, running her length as if to discover the real merits of her situation. Preparing to start the launch into the open sea away from the rocks and then to run direct for Brookville, Tom and Bill for a moment were awed into inactivity as a great shout went up.
The steamer again lurched to one side. A loud crash sounded above the howling gale, and the Olivia lay a shattered wreck on the rocks.