"Here I am; holding fast to the anchor rope," replied Roy. "Can't you see me now?"
The boy's hand instinctively went to his head; but the cap he intended to wave in the air to show the light-ship's men where he was, had been left aboard the White Squall to keep company with his shirt-sleeve. But if the men couldn't see him they heard his words, for the wind brought them plainly to their ears; and instead of stopping to ask him what he was doing in the water and how he got there in the first place, they pulled up their lanterns and hurried away.
"Hurrah for me!" said Roy to himself. "They've gone to lower a boat and I am all right—"
Just then another wave broke over his head; but when he came up again, Roy continued his soliloquy as if nothing had happened.
"Or shall be in a few minutes," said he. "I've learned a good many things to-night, and one of them is, that a wind that would keep our Mount Airy people ashore don't bother these deep-water fellows at all. I call this a gale; but these watermen, who are used to such things, run around in small boats as fearlessly as we take to Mirror Lake when there isn't a capful of wind to ruffle the surface."
Roy was plunged under a good many times while he waited for the men to come and take him off, but presently their boat hove in sight. She looked too large and heavy for two men to row, but she was built for just the work she was doing now, and Roy Sheldon was not the only one who owed his life to her and the gallant fellows who manned her. She came over the waves like a duck, and almost before Roy knew it he was sitting in her stern-sheets with a heavy coat around him. The men uttered exclamations of astonishment when they saw how he was dressed, but not a question did they ask until they had taken him safe aboard the light-ship and into a warm, well-lighted cabin.
"Pull off them wet duds and put on these here," said one of the men, laying some dry clothing on a chair near the stove.
"I am sorry to occasion you so much trouble," began Roy, who saw that the oil-skin suits his rescuers wore were dripping with spray. "I have given you a long, hard pull."
"Oh, that's nothing," was the reply. "We're used to picking up folks, specially during the racing season when a yacht turns bottom side up now and then. But what made you get sick of your bargain so soon? Why didn't you let yourself go down, like you'd oughter?"
"What bargain?" exclaimed Roy. "And why ought I to let myself go down?"