His emotion was too great for many words.
“And you jumped overboard to save me?” was all he said.
But his look was enough.
Johnny Liston had been swimming with one arm only thrust through the life-buoy, as he had been obliged to quit his hold of it each time he dived beneath the crest of a wave.
He now took it off, holding on to the wheelhouse-top, which sank down into the water on one side under the double weight of the two lads, elevating the other end in the air.
“Here, put this on, Dave,” he said. “I brought it for you, and a precious job I have had to reach you with it.”
“But you, Jonathan—I beg your pardon, old chap, I didn’t mean to call you so. I know you don’t like it.”
“Never mind, Dave. If you think of me as Jonathan you may as well call me so. I shan’t mind you doing so any longer I rather like it, old fellow, now, for our friendship will be like that of David and Jonathan that we read of in the Bible; you know it says that ‘the soul of Jonathan was knit unto the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.’ That’s just how I feel.”
“What a chap you are to think of that now,” said David admiringly, “with both of us bobbing about in the middle of the ocean, and the ship out of sight. But I won’t have the life-buoy; what will you do without it?”
“Bless you, I can swim like a fish, Dave, and it was more a nuisance to me than a help; but, we can both hold on to it, you know, if it comes to the worst. How’s your leg, Dave? I thought it was broken when you got it twisted in the wheel that time.”