“Steady amidship, there,” sang out the skipper as the old barquey forged ahead once more. “Steady, my man.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered the foremost hand, Parrell, who had come from the fo’c’s’le to take the first “trick” at the steering wheel on the bridge. “Steady it is.”
“How does the boat bear now, Haldane?”
“Two points off our starboard bow, sir,” I replied to this hail of the skipper. “She’s about three miles off, I think, sir.”
“All right,” he shouted back to me. “Port your helm, there!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” repeated Parrell. “Port, sir, it is.”
“We’re rising her fast now, sir,” I called out after a short interval. “There’s a man in the boat; yes, a man, sir. I can see him quite plainly now, and I’m sure I’m not mistaken!”
“Are you quite sure, my lad?”
“Quite sure, sir. And he’s alive, too, I’m certain. Yes, sir; he moved then distinctly. I could see him plainly. Why, the boat is so near now that you ought to see it from the deck.”
“And so I can, by Jingo, Haldane!” replied the captain, peering out ahead himself with a telescope from the end of the bridge. “I fancy I can see a second figure, and it looks like another man, too, lying down in the bows of the boat, as well as the figure at the stern, who seems to me to be holding up an oar or something!”