“He’s waving,” cried Mr. Smallwood. “Hurrah! Give way, men! There’s a poor beggar roasting on that ship.”
But the boat’s crew needed no urging. In the lee of the burning cattle ship the water was smoother and they could make better time. Silhouetted against the glare, too, every man of them could see, by a twist of his head, that solitary marooned figure on the bow of the fire ship.
As the first boat,—Mr. Smallwood’s,—ranged in alongside the high steel prow, Jack’s quick eye caught sight of a rope dangling from the great steel anchor chains. By what impulse he did it he could not have explained, but as the boat ranged close alongside he poised for an instant on the heaving gunwale and then launched his body forward into space.
“Come back, boy!” shouted Mr. Smallwood. But by the time the words had left his mouth, Jack was scrambling up the rope amidst the cheers of the men in the tossing boats now far below him. It was the work of a few moments only to gain the anchor chain, and to climb up them was, for a lad of Jack’s brawn and activity, an easy task.
“Thank heaven you came before it was too late,” cried the solitary man on the fore deck, staggering toward the boy with outstretched arms.
“Are you the only man on board?” demanded the boy, deciding to leave explanations till later.
“No, Dick Sanders is sick in his bunk below.”
“Where, down this hatchway? In the forecastle?” asked Jack quickly.
“Yes, I was too weak to carry him up, heaven help me,” muttered the other reeling weakly.
Jack did not stop to listen. He knew that within a few minutes his shipmates would be on board and would rescue the half-crazed man on the bow. It was his duty to go after the sick man below. Into the ill-smelling darkness of the forecastle of the cattle ship he plunged, clawing his way down an iron ladder. At the bottom he struck a match. As its light flared up he heard a groan, and looking in the direction from which it came he espied the emaciated form of a boy lying in a bunk.