Both Mr Macdougall and the skipper looked aloft, impelled by the same instinct, as they stood aft, the mate close to the taffrail; when, at that instant, the spanker boom swinging round, the lee sheet—not being hauled taut—caught the mate athwart his chest and swept him incontinently over the side!
I was on the opposite side of the deck, witnessing with much satisfaction the mode in which he and the skipper had made up their differences, the feud having lasted for over a fortnight; but, on seeing the accident, was for a moment horror-struck.
However, I soon recovered myself.
“Man overboard!” I shouted out, with all the power of my lungs; and then, without hesitation, I plunged after Mr Macdougall into the sea.
Chapter Nineteen.
On Fire In The Hold!
The wind had dropped to a calm, as I’ve mentioned, just before this; but the sea was still running high, with those heavy waves that get up in a moment in the lower latitudes as soon as it begins to blow. But I never thought of this when I plunged in to the mate’s rescue.
When I was at Dr Hellyer’s, the only two things I ever really learnt that were of any use to me in my after-life were, a substantial grounding in mathematics—thanks to “Smiley”—which subsequently made the study of navigation easy to me when Sam Pengelly put me under charge of a tutor; and, secondly, the art of swimming, the place where the school was situated and the practice of taking out the boys on the beach for the purpose every day, offering great facilities to any one with the least aptitude for taking to the water and possessed of a desire to learn how to support himself in it.