"However, I might as well keep on as stay still," mused the philosophical Bill, baling out the water that now came tumbling aboard in far too great quantities to render the situation a pleasant one. So the day passed and it was not till the next morning, after an exhausting night of constant terror that the launch was about to sink, that Bill saw the smoke of a distant steamer as he rose on a wave crest.
Would her officers see him?
That was the question that agitated his mind as he waved frantically while she drew nearer and he saw that she was one of the crack liners of the Central American Trading Company. As she raced through the water a great "Bone" of white spray was sent out from each side of her keen cutwater. A volume of thick black smoke rolled from her yellow funnels. She would have made a fine sight to any one less in fear of his life than Bluewater Bill.
Till she was within half-a-mile of him it seemed the big craft was going to pass him by, but suddenly, to his joy, Bill saw her change her course and bear down for him. As she drew nearer, rolling mightily in the high sea, a man on the bridge hailed him in stentorian tones through a megaphone.
"Ahoy! what lunatic are you?"
"Bluewater Bill of the Eleanor Jones of Bath,—castaway," yelled back the drifter in the launch, who had by this time shut off his engine.
"We'll stand by and lower a boat," was the next hail and soon Bill was on his way aboard the Yucatan—for that was the vessel's name—and the tiny launch, which had been the means of saving his life and almost of his losing it, was tossing far astern.
But Bill, perilous as his position was until he was actually in the Yucatan's lifeboat, had not lost his presence of mind. He realized in a flash that a castway with a pocket full of gold would be an object of suspicion and he had his own reasons for not wanting to tell how he had obtained it, so, before the ship's boat reached the launch the old mariner emptied his pockets of their golden freight and sent the coins tumbling into the sea. He retained only the one piece that he had loaned to Billy Barnes as an evidence of his good faith.
"And now, boys," concluded the old mariner, "what do you think of my story?"
"Why, it's the most marvelous thing I ever heard of!" exclaimed Frank.