"Look sharp now! lay hold there!" he cried again, and then: "All right. Keep your grip, and we'll have you in a minute." Then turning to those behind him: "Lower that boat—quick!"
The davits creaked and groaned as the ropes spun through the blocks; there was a big splash when the boat struck the water, a few fierce strokes of the oars, and then a glad shout of, "All right; we've got them," in response to which cheer upon cheer rang out from the throng above, now relieved from their intense anxiety.
A few minutes later, three dripping forms were carefully handed up the side, and taken into the warm engine room, the little girl still unconscious, and the boys so exhausted as to be not far from the same condition.
Their rescue had been effected just in time. A little more, and utterly unable to keep themselves afloat any longer, they would have sunk beneath the pitiless waves.
"It seemed awful to have to die that way," said Bert, when telling his parents about it. "I was getting weaker and weaker all the time, and so, too, was Frank, and I thought we'd have to let the poor little girl go, and strike out for ourselves. But we kept praying hard to God to help us; and then all of a sudden I saw a light, and I said to Frank, 'There's the steamer—hold on a little longer;' and then I could hear the sound of the paddles, and the next thing the captain shouted to us and flung us a life preserver, and we got a good grip of that, and held on until the boat took us all in."
The heroic action of the two boys made them famous in Halifax. The newspapers printed columns in their praise, a handsome subscription was taken up in a day to present them each with a splendid gold medal commemorating the event; important personages, who had never noticed them before, stopped them on the street to shake hands with them, and what really pleased them most of all, Dr. Johnston gave the school a holiday in their honour, having just delivered an address, in which, with flashing eyes and quivering lips, he told the other scholars how proud he felt of Frank and Bert, and how he hoped their schoolmates would show the same noble courage if they ever had a like opportunity.
The parents of the little one they rescued were plain people of limited means, but they could not deny themselves the luxury of manifesting their gratitude in some tangible form. Accordingly, they had two pictures of their daughter prepared, and placed in pretty frames, bearing the expressive inscription, "Rescued," with the date beneath; and the mother herself took them to the boys, the tears that bathed her cheeks as she presented them telling far better than any words could do, how fervent was her gratitude.
Deeply as Frank had been moved at being brought through his own generous impulse into such close quarters with death, the excitement and bustle of the days immediately following the event so filled his mind that the impression bade fair to pass away again, leaving him no better than he had been before. But it was not God's purpose that this should be the result. Before the good effects of that brief prayer meeting in the water were entirely dissipated, another influence came to their support. Although he knew it not, he was approaching the great crisis of his life, and by a way most unexpected; he was shortly to be led into that higher plane of existence, toward which he had been slowly tending through the years of his friendship with Bert.