“But we’re sinking,” cried Jack wildly. “Eh? Whose baby is it? What’s matter—Jack? Taken ill?”
“No, no. Quick! Come on deck.”
“Just won’t,” growled the doctor; and he turned his back and uttered a deep snore.
Jack stared in horror, and then dropped on all fours to crawl to the foot of the cabin stairs, and fetch help to drag the drowning man on deck, being fully imbued with the idea that Doctor Instow had
taken some drug in his despair, so that he might be unconscious when the yacht went down.
In passing he saw that the captain’s and the mate’s berths were both empty, and, how he knew not, he crawled up the cabin stairs, looked on deck, and saw that his father was standing by the weather bulwark, and the captain close by.
There was the man at the wheel, and a couple more forward in shiny yellow tarpaulins; and as he gazed at them wildly, there was a thud and a beautiful curve over of a wave which deluged the deck and splashed the two men, but they did not stir.
He saw no more then, for the yacht careened over from the pressure on the three great sails, and it seemed to the lad that the next moment they would be lying flat upon the water, so he clung to the hatchway fittings for dear life. But the next moment the Silver Star rose from the wave in front, and literally rushed on, quivering from stem to stern like a live creature, the waves parting and hissing to form an ever-widening path of foam astern.
Jack caught the full fresh breeze in his teeth as he struggled on deck, and breathlessly staggered to the side, looking as if he were going to leap overboard; then clinging to the rail, he crept hand-over-hand to where his father now stood with the captain.