While a score of voices utter the thrilling cry:
“Man overboard!”
But all are startled by seeing a form run out on the yard and spring into the sea. What does it mean?
The executive officer did not lose his head for an instant, for his command came sharply, and with promptness to lay the ship to and man the lifeboat. At the order:
“Lay down from aloft!” came the young sailors at a run, some of them fairly flying down the shrouds, others sliding down the backstays, and getting to the deck as best they can.
The good ship is “laying to,” and the life boat is lowered and pulls back over her wake to pick up the two men who have gone overboard, while the question goes the rounds:
“Who are they?”
At last one answers who knows:
“It was Clemmons who was thrown from aloft, and Merrill who sprang after him.”
The speaker was Bemis Perry, and he was at once ordered before his captain, who asked: