“Can you still see either of them, Williams?” hailed the captain.
“Yes, sir; I can still see the one I saw at first; but not the other,” was the reply.
“We must pick him up, if possible,” exclaimed the skipper. “Up helm, my man; hard up with it. Man the main-braces, and fill the topsail!”
At this juncture Sibylla, who had not heard the first part of the skipper’s speech, stepped up to Captain Blyth, ashy pale, and gasped:
“What are you going to do, captain? Is it possible you are going to be inhuman enough to leave that poor fellow there to die?”
“No, my dear,” was the answer. “I am going to save him, if it is in human power to do so. You go below, now, like a good girl, and persuade the others to go too; this is no sight for a woman to look upon.”
But Sibylla could no more have gone below than she could have flown. She walked aft, and stood at the taffrail with tightly-clasped hands and starting eyes, looking eagerly astern, her whole body quivering with an agony of impatience at what seemed to her the tardy movements of the ship.
As a matter of fact, however, the Flying Cloud had never proved herself more handy, or been worked more smartly than on that precise occasion; had she been sentient she could scarcely have yielded to her commander’s will more readily than she did. Keeping broad away until she had good way on her the skipper watched his opportunity, and, signing to the helmsman, the wheel was put over, and the ship flew up into the wind, tacking like a yacht, Williams at the same time making his way up on to the royal-yard, in order that the main-topsail might not interfere with his range of vision. In effecting this change of position, notwithstanding his utmost care, he contrived to lose sight of the diminutive speck on the surface of the water; and when Captain Blyth again hailed, asking him if he still saw it, he was compelled to answer “No.” An anxious search of about a minute, however—a minute which seemed an age to Sibylla—enabled him to hit it off once more, and he joyously hailed the deck to say that the person—whoever it might be—was still afloat and broad on the lee-bow.
“Keep her away a couple of points,” commanded Captain Blyth; “and pass the word for the boatswain to muster all the light heaving-line he can lay his hands upon. Range yourselves fore and aft along the lee bulwarks, my lads, and let each one stand by to heave a rope’s-end with a standing bowline in it as soon as we get near enough. How does he bear now, Williams?”
“Straight ahead, sir. Luff, or you will be over him! It is Ned, sir.”