“Man overboard!” sang out one of the crew, who was pulling away at the jib down-haul in order to stow the sail, the halliards having been cast loose, “Man overboard!” in a voice which rang through the vessel fore and aft, and attracted everybody’s attention.
“Hi! Rollo, good dog!” cried out Bob, turning round sharp to where the brave old fellow had been lying on the deck not a moment before, flopping his tail lazily, and with his great red tongue lolling out, as though he laughed cheerily at everything going on around him.
“Hi! Rollo!” said I too, in almost the same breath with Bob. “Fetch him out, good dog!” and I turned round also.
But the dog was gone.
Bob and I were “nonplussed.” We had both seen Rollo there not—why, not a second before. And now he was gone.
However, we soon discovered the noble fellow and the cause of his absence.
The cry of “Man overboard!” had startled everybody, so that the anchor had not been let go; and the steersman’s attention, naturally, having been taken up, the yacht had paid off again instead of bringing up, and her head had swung; consequently, what had been ahead of us just before was now astern, and we were quite confused as to our bearings.
While we were looking in perplexity in every direction but the right one, Captain Buncombe, who was at the wheel, and perhaps anxious to atone for his carelessness in letting the Moonshine swing round, shouted out “Bravo!” waving his hat like a madman. Of course all our several pairs of eyes were turned on him at once.
“There he is—there he is—the brave old fellow!” cried the captain, letting go the helm in his eagerness, and pointing with his hat—waving hand to the water under the stern. “Look aft, you duffers! Where are your eyes? Bravo, Rollo! good dog! Hold up, old fellow! I’m coming to help you!” and with these words, before you could say “Jack Robinson,” Captain Buncombe had thrown off his coat, pitched away the hat he had been waving, jumped over the taffrail of the yacht into the bosom of the blue Aegean Sea, and was rapidly swimming to where we could see dear old Rollo’s black head and splashing paws as he supported a man in the yacht’s wake, and tried to drag him towards us in the Moonshine.
We gave a “Hooray!” which you might have heard at Charing Cross if you had been listening!