“Have you come to save me?” gasped out the sick lad, who was almost a skeleton and whose eyes glowed with unnatural brightness in his parchment-like face.
“Yes, but you must do exactly what I tell you,” instructed Jack.
“I will, oh, I will,” choked out the other. “Only save me. I was afraid I was going to be left here to die alone.”
“Don’t talk about dying now,” ordered Jack. “Now clasp your arms round my neck and hold on tight. Do you think you can keep your grip till we get to the top of that ladder?”
“Yes—that is, I think so,” returned the sick lad, who had been cabin boy on the doomed ship.
“Then, hold on,” ordered Jack as, having carried his pitifully light burden across the forecastle to the foot of the ladder, he prepared to ascend the rounds. Once or twice he had to stop on the way up, and holding on with one hand, grasp Dick Sanders with his other arm to allow the lad to recruit his strength. At last they reached the deck and Jack, who was almost exhausted, laid his frail burden down with a sigh of relief.
He looked about for his companions, who he fully expected to see on the forecastle. There was no sign of them.
The lone man who had waved to them from the bow had also vanished. A rope ladder, one end of which was secured inboard, showed the way they had gone.
“Queer that they didn’t wait for me,” muttered Jack. “They must have known I was below. I wonder——”