“Parbleu, c’est vrai! Vire que nous nous en approchions.”
“C’est fait,” exclaimed Jacques, now quite as much excited - as the other, and eager to rescue any one in peril or distress, as every sailor of every nationality always is—that is, a true sailor. “Starboard it is!”
“Babord!” cried out Antoine, as the helmsman called him, telling the latter he was to put the tiller over. “Port.”
Jacques replied by a counter order.
“Toi, Antoine,” shouted he, “lache la grande voile!” meaning him to “slacken off the mainsheets,” whereupon the lugger was brought alongside the wreck of the cutter.
Our friend Antoine, without wasting a moment, at once stepped on board, exclaiming, “Tenez bon dessus—Hold on.”
The man was shocked at what he saw, the dead bodies, as he thought, of Bob and Dick lying across each other on the floor of the little cabin, half in and half out of which the boys were exposed to his view at the first glance.
“Pauvres garçons!” he cried in a husky voice, wiping away a tear that sprang unbidden to his eye, with the characteristic ready emotional sympathy of his countrymen. “Pauvres garçons.”
Jacques, who was a little longer in coming to inspect the derelict, hearing what his companion said, called out for further information.
“De quel pays sont-ils?” he asked. “Can you tell their nationality?”