Of course it was rough work for a novice, paddling in such broken water; but after a few strokes he got used to it, and, by dint of diving under the swelling bosom of some of the more threatening crests, and floating over the tops of the others whose ridges were yet perfect, he made his way pretty rapidly towards the spot where he had espied David floating off.
The wind and the set of the sea were both against him, but the answering hail of the middy assured him he was proceeding in the right direction, and would be soon by his lost friend’s side.
Another stroke or two, and as Johnny Liston rose on the crest of a huge mountain of water, which took him up almost to the sky, he saw below him the broken timbers of the bulwarks rolling about in the trough of the sea, and he thought they formed part of the wreckage on which David had been supporting himself, and that he had seen him on them.
His heart sank within him like lead, for no one was floating on the broken bulwarks now. Poor Dave must have gone.
Just at that moment, however, the middy’s faint hail rang again clearly out above the noise of the wind and the sea, to assure him he was still above the surface, and restore his drooping energies.
“Ahoy! Help! Ahoy!”
He did not require to hail again, for, the next moment overtopping another billow, his friend Jonathan shot up alongside of him, and grasped him by the shoulder.
“Oh, Dave,” he exclaimed. “Thank God I’ve got you safe. I thought I would never have found you.”
David had partly clambered up on the top of the wheelhouse, and lay stretched out with his legs in the water.
He raised his head and turned his face as Jonathan got hold of him.