“Oh, it’s all right,” said David, kicking it out vigorously as he spoke. “The bone isn’t quite broken, but it’s very sore, and I suppose I’d have to lay up for it if I wasn’t here;” and he grinned ruefully.
“Do you think the ship will pick us up?” said the other presently, losing some of his self-possession now that he had come up with David, and the motive for forgetting self and personal danger was wanting.
He was naturally timid unless nerved up by necessity.
“Oh, yes,” said David, whose spirits rose with the occasion, and who in the presence of his friend forgot all the peril. “Captain Markham won’t desert us, never fear; but you can’t pull up a ship like a horse, you know, Jonathan, and it will take some time for the Sea Rover to tack about before she can fetch us. I wish, however, old chap, we had a little better raft than this to support us; the wheelhouse-top is hardly big enough for two, even with the buoy, which, though it can keep us afloat, won’t raise us out of the water as we want.”
“Why, I passed some wreckage a few yards off before I reached you,” said his friend.
“Did you?” said David. “That must have been the gangway and part of the bulwarks that came away with me. I wish we had the lot here.”
“Do you?” said Jonathan, as we must now call him, “then I’ll soon fetch them,” striking out as he spoke.
“Take care,” said David; “and pray take the buoy with you.”
But, the sea saved Jonathan the trouble of leaving his friend, for the very pieces of timber of which he had spoken made their appearance at that moment, floating down towards them from the summit of a wave, in whose valley they were; and Jonathan swam beyond them and pushed them before him till they were alongside the wheelhouse-top.
There was plenty of material to form a substantial raft with the addition of what they already had; and as Jonathan drew up the heavy mass alongside, David gave a shout of joy.