Surely that gurgling, despairing cry sounded his name, or was his mind affected by his agony? No, it came again, and it was close beside him—only a rising wave between him and it. Juan! It was Juan’s voice!
“Juan, Juan!” he screamed, his heart filled at once with terror and joy. “Juan, I am here, here!”
He peered through the gloom, watching the great wave sink into a hollow. He listened with sharpened ears for a repetition of the cry. The wave sank and was rushing away, with another sweeping in to take its place, Diego riding on its side, buoyed up by the canoe. Something, something—what was it?—gleamed on the black surface.
“Juan, Juan!” screamed Diego, and, at the risk of losing his hold on the canoe, he reached out and clutched at the floating thing.
The wave rolled on, and broke over the speck of fighting humanity; then dropped away, and there was an instant of calm. It was enough. Diego had Juan in the grip of love and loneliness.
Juan had been on the point of giving up; but, as with Diego, so with him; he was no sooner assured that succor was at hand than he revived. He caught the side of the canoe—the canoe of those Indians had a sort of flange running around it—and held there until he could climb on it as Diego had done.
It was a precarious resting-place, tossing about on the waves, but it was so much better than nothing that both boys felt, from the moment of touching it, as if they should live to see another day. Neither of them could find breath to say anything for a few minutes; but in a little while Diego put his mouth close to Juan’s ear and said:
“The ship is gone.”
“Yes,” answered Juan; “but I think we are safe here. Can you hold on long enough?”