Tom Mills and I chuckled at this; but, alas! our merriment was suddenly hushed by hearing a wild shriek come from aloft, that rose above the moaning of the wind as it whistled through the rigging and the melancholy wash of the waves, while, at the same instant, a dark body whizzed through the air and fell into the water alongside with a heavy plunge.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Commander Nesbitt, as we all stared at one another with blanched faces. “What is that?”
His question was answered in the moment of its utterance by a loud shout from forward that rang through the ship, sending a chill to every heart.
“Man overboard!”
Chapter Seventeen.
A Hopeless Quest.
“Sentry, let go the life-buoy!” cried out Commander Nesbitt at once to the marine guard on duty on the poop, as the shout reached his ears; and then, facing round again forward, he said, “Bosun’s mate, call away the lifeboat crew!”
On the order being given, the marine had instantly pulled the trigger releasing the slip by which the patent buoy was suspended over the stern, whereupon it dropped into the sea below; the same mechanism igniting the port fire with which it was charged, although it was not yet dark, as the friction-tube had been put in a short while previously when the watch was relieved at Eight Bells, it being the rule on board for the gunner’s mate to do this every day before sunset and take out the percussion-tube again in the morning at daybreak when the hands turned out to wash and scrub decks.