“We’re all right, fellows,” said Jones, when he had opportunity to exchange a word with Lester and Enoch in private. “The superintendent won’t say anything to us. He can’t after what we have done.”
“But we didn’t all do as well as Enoch did,” said Lester.
“I know that. He will receive the lion’s share of the honors, but the rest of us did the best we could, and if one is let off scot free, the others must be let off too. Those people would have gone to the bottom with their yacht if we hadn’t sighted them just as we did; and by rescuing them we have made ample amends for our misdeeds.”
All the deserters seemed to be of the same opinion, and the boys who, but a short time before, would have shrunk from meeting the gaze of their teachers, now looked forward to their return to camp with the liveliest anticipations of pleasure. There was one thing they all regretted, now that the fun was over, and that was, that the confiding Coleman had lost his situation through them. They resolved, if they could gain the ear of the Sylph’s owner, to make an effort to have him reinstated. Fortunately for Coleman, this proved to be an easy thing to do.
It was twenty miles to the nearest village, but the fleet little vessels, aided by the brisk wind that was blowing, covered the distance in quick time. The moment the Sylph came within jumping distance of the wharf, one of her crew sprang ashore and started post-haste for a doctor, and shortly afterward Burgess and another of Bert’s men boarded the Idlewild.
“The lady is coming around all right and wants to see her boy,” said the former.
The little fellow was fast asleep in one of the bunks, and his clothes were drying in the galley; so Burgess picked him up, blankets and all, and carried him off to his mother, while his companion lingered to give Captain Mack some account of the rescued people who, he said, were able to talk now, but too weak to sit up. They were from Newport, and they were all relations of Mr. Packard, the Sylph’s owner. The owner and captain of the lost sloop was Mr. Packard’s brother, and the little boy was his nephew. The lady was the captain’s wife. They had been out in all that storm, and after the men had worked at the pumps until their strength failed them, they had lashed themselves to the rigging in the hope that their disabled craft would remain afloat until the waves could carry her ashore.
“But she wouldn’t have gone ashore,” said Egan. “She would have missed the island and been carried out to sea if she had stayed above water.”
“They know that,” said the student, “and they know, too, that they owe their lives to the Sylph, for they would have gone down before the Idlewild could have reached them. They feel very grateful toward the dory’s crew, and Mr. Packard says he will never forget the gallant fellow who saved his boy’s life at the risk of his own.”