But though Tom Burdett spoke strongly, Horace noticed that his tone was not so decided as when he said that the fishing-boats could not go out.
“Look here, Tom,” he said, “I suppose there must be thirty hands on board that ship. We can’t see them drowned without making a try to save them. We have got the best boat here on the coast. We have been out in some bad weather in her, and she has always behaved splendidly. I vote we try. She can fetch out between the piers all right from where she is moored; and if, when we get fairly out, we find it is altogether too much for her, we could put back again.”
Tom made no answer. He was standing looking at the ship. He had been already turning it over in his mind whether it would not be possible for the Surf to put out. He had himself an immense faith in her sea-going qualities, and believed that she might be able to stand even this sea.
“But you wouldn’t be thinking of going in her, Mr. Horace?” he said doubtfully at last.
“Of course I should,” the lad said indignantly. “You don’t suppose that I would let the Surf go out if I were afraid to go in her myself.”
“Your father would never agree to that if he were at home, sir.”
“Yes, he would,” Horace said. “I am sure my father would say that if the Surf went out I ought to go in her, and that it would be cowardly to let other people do what one is afraid to do one’s self. Besides, I can swim better than either you or Dick, and should have more chance of getting ashore if she went down; but I don’t think she would go down. I am nearly sixteen now; and as my father isn’t here I shall have my own way. If you say that you think there is no chance of the Surf getting out to her there is an end of it; but if you say that you think she could live through it, we will go.”
HORACE SUGGESTS A RESCUE
“I think she might do it, Mr. Horace; I have been a saying so to the others. They all say that it would be just madness, but then they don’t know the craft as I do.”