"Be quick!" she exclaimed, as she departed. "I want to know all about it!"
"Y-y-yes, ma'am," chattered Jerry.
Ten minutes later, partially warmed and clad in dry clothes, Jerry, moon-faced and sheepish, stumbled into the room where Florence sat beside her immobile father. The eyes of Captain Miles Hathaway dwelt upon Jerry.
"Come here by the fire." Florence set him in a chair beside the oil-stove that warmed the room. "Now, tell me! Did everything go all right?"
"Yes'm, I guess so." Jerry grinned. "That is, far's I know it did, for me. You see, Mr. Dennis, he told me what to do. So just 'fore they called all hands, I messed things up in the galley consid'able, and the new cook——"
"The new cook came, then?" interjected Florence, a little pale.
"Yes'm. Frenchy, they called him. So him and the steward tailed on the lines, with the rest, and the Missus, she was mad as an ol' cat about the galley bein' messed up, and so she come to 'tend to it, and I slipped down into the cabins and met Mr. Dennis. He had the stern window open, and he give me that electric lamp and a life-buoy what he'd snaked down from the stern-rail after dark.
"So I got the life-belt 'round me an' clumb out the window and hung on the line that Mr. Dennis had made fast, and waited till he give me the word. Golly, I was scared! The skipper, he was right up there over my head, and he was talkin' with Frenchy, and he says: 'There's no call for you to get mad, Dumont. You get rid of her husband first like you'd ought to of done back in Chicago.' And Frenchy, he says, 'Where is he?' The skipper, he says, 'Down below I guess, but don't do nothin' now because I figger on sending him down in a divin'-suit when we get started to work.' Then they both laughed, and just then Mr. Dennis, he give me the word to swing off——"
"Had he heard them talking?" demanded Florence, white-lipped.
"Naw. He didn't know they was talking up there at all; he'd been standin' back from the window a piece, I guess. I was scared they'd hear him give me the word, but they didn't. So I slid down into the water and the ol' ship walked right away and nobody seen me. Tell you what, it was cold! I flashed the light a couple o' times, then the old guy give me a hail and come alongside and took me in. Golly, but I was glad!"