"No use thinking of such possibilities," rejoined Ned decisively.
"Well, I can't help it," protested Herc indignantly. "I remember when that thresher blew up to grandpa's. I guess this would be something like that, eh, Ned?"
"Only more so," was the dry reply.
Suddenly the notification that all was ready for the lowering of the last boat rang out.
As this one was to be the final lifeboat to leave the ship, it was put overside before any one boarded it. The officers of the Rhode Island, the six members of the crew remaining, the boys and Commander Dunham getting into it by sliding down the falls.
At last they were all on board, and the order was given to shove off. No time was lost in doing this, as the Rhode Island was by this time a mass of flames in her forepart, and it seemed impossible that she could float much longer.
"Do you anticipate being picked up shortly, captain?" asked the boys' friend of the commander of the Rhode Island.
"Why, I don't expect that we'll have to drift about very long," was the reply. "You see, the Sound is well traveled, and some ship must have seen the flare of the fire."
It was bitterly cold in the storm-swept waters of the Sound, but the boys checked any tendency they might have felt to complain by thinking of the plight of the women and children in the other boats.
It is doubtful as the newspapers at the time pointed out, that there would have been no fatalities attendant on the wreck of the Rhode Island, if but a little less than half an hour after they had cast adrift from the ill-fated steamer, the Kentucky, of the Joy Line, had not hove in sight. By this time the Rhode Island had burned to the water's edge, and sank with a noisy roar.