“Yes, there is, sir,” I called out, stopping on my way down the rigging to have another look. After a pause I exclaimed, “I can see both of them, and with my naked eye. I can see them now!”
“Well, then, you’d better come down from aloft. Tell your friend, the boatswain, to come down as well. He’ll be wanted at the fo’c’s’le when we presently come up to the boat, as I trust we shall!”
“Lucky Masters saw the boat, sir,” said I when I reached the deck and up to the skipper’s side again. “But even more fortunate it is for the poor fellows that our engines are working again, sir, for otherwise we could not have been able to get up to the boat and save them.”
“It isn’t luck, my boy,” observed Mr Stokes, whom the death of poor Jackson and his own narrow escape from a like fate had led to think of other matters besides those connected with his mundane profession. “It’s Providence!”
Chapter Fourteen.
An Appeal For Aid.
“Aye, that’s the better way of looking at it,” chimed in the skipper, raising his arm at the same time from his station at the end of the bridge, where he was conning the ship. He then called out sharply, to enforce the signal.
“Luff up, you lubber, luff!”