"It will miss us," Ben said, after watching the spar for a minute. "You see, I allowed for wind and tide, and the wind does not affect the spar, and the tide will sweep it down thirty or forty yards on our port bow."
It turned out so. Those on board payed out the line until the spar floated abreast of the smack, but at a distance of some thirty yards away.
"What is to be done?" Ben asked. "If we were to try to get up sail again we should drift away so far to leeward we should never be able to beat back."
"Look here," Jack said; "if you signal to them to veer out some more rope I could soon do it. I could not swim across the tide now, but if it were twenty fathom further astern I could manage it."
"You could never swim in that sea, Jack."
"Well, I could try, uncle. Of course you would fasten a line round me, and if I cannot get there you will haul me in again. There cannot be any danger about that."
So saying Jack at once proceeded to throw off his oil-skins and sea-boots, while Ben went to the bow of the boat and waved to those on the wreck to slack out more line. They soon understood him, and the spar was presently floating twenty yards further astern. Jack had by this time stripped. A strong line was now fastened round his body under his arms, and going up to the bow of the boat, so as to give himself as long a distance as possible to drift, he prepared for the swim.