"I see it, too!" cried the Englishman, at last. "But what is it?"
"A ship," Dave answered. "To be more exact, it looks like a destroyer, and it looks too as though it might pass within a quarter of a mile of us."
"Look, my dear—look!" the Englishman urged his wife, shaking her in his eagerness to have her realize the thread of hope that dangled before their eyes. "A ship coming! We are to be saved."
Her eyes opened at last; the woman struggled bravely to show interest in the sight that half-cheered the others, but she could not. She was too far gone, and her eyes closed again.
"Keep your wife awake, sir, if you have to begin to pull her hair from her head!!" It was a command. "See how near that craft is getting. Jove, sir! I believe it is one of our own Yankee ships!"
"But they will not come close enough to see us," objected Captain Kennor, with the practiced eyes of the veteran seaman. "They are not using their searchlight, and we have no way of signalling to them."
Without speaking Darrin tried a desperate hope. In one of his hands something gleamed out into the night.
"What is it?" demanded the Dane. "Himmel! Der flashlight! Vere or ven did you by dat come?"
"I found it in the locker of our sleeping cabin, and hid it in my clothes," Dave answered, as he again tested the light. "I did not want to speak of it unless there should come some hope to us. This light was evidently left by some German who had used that cabin. It's waterproof, too. When I found it I had a hope that it might come in handy before I got through with this adventure. And now!"
Waiting only a minute or two longer, Dave, clinging to the spar with one arm, held the other hand as high aloft as he could.