The attack made upon our hero was so sudden and so rapidly executed, that there was no opportunity for resistance. Before he well knew what had happened to him he found himself struggling in the ocean. Instinct led him to strike out. In response to his cry the plank was thrown overboard, as we know. He saw it and swam towards it. Fortunately he was an expert swimmer, and had no difficulty in reaching it.
He got upon the plank and supported himself by it. Then, for the first time, he was able to look towards the Sea Eagle. It was speeding away from him, not rapidly, for there was a light wind, but surely.
“Surely they will lower a boat for me,” thought our hero, anxiously.
He had heard Tom Patch’s shout of encouragement, and he knew Tom would not let him perish, if he could help it. He did not suspect that the captain would be inhuman enough to refuse assistance. So he gazed anxiously, but still hopefully, at the receding ship, wondering why there was such a delay in getting out the boat. But when five minutes had elapsed, and, straining his eyes in the uncertain light, he could see no preparations going forward for a rescue, the thought flashed upon him in all its horror that he was to be left to his fate. And what a fate! Thousands of miles from home, adrift on the vast ocean, with only a plank between him and destruction. Could anything be more fearful?
At present the ocean was comparatively calm. There was little breeze, and so no high waves were excited. He could float without any great difficulty in clinging to the plank. But this could not be expected to last. To-morrow the waves might sweep him from his sole refuge, and to certain destruction. Besides, he had neither food nor drink. Even were he able to cling to the plank, hunger and thirst would soon make his condition insupportable. There was still another consideration. It would not do for him to sleep. Should he lose consciousness, his hold of the plank would, of course, relax, and he would be drowned.
All these thoughts crowded upon our young hero, and, hero though we call him, a feeling of bitter despair came to him. Was this to be the end of all his glowing hopes and bright anticipations of future prosperity? Was he never to see his mother and his little sister Katy again? He felt at this terrible moment how he loved them both, and, anxious as he was for himself, with death staring him in the face, he could not help thinking how his death would affect these dear ones, and anxiously considered how they would be able to get along without him. When the property was gone, how would his mother get along?
“Oh, if I could but live for mother and Katy!” thought the poor boy. “I would work for them without a murmur. But it is horrible to die in the wild ocean so for away from home.”
He was not troubled by drowsiness, for in the tumult of his feelings he could not have composed himself to sleep under any circumstances. His mind was preternaturally active. Now he thought of his mother, now of his school-mates, and his happy school-days at the Vernon High School, of the many good times he had enjoyed hunting for nuts, or picking berries, or playing ball with the boys. Then he thought of Squire Turner, and wondered how he would feel when he heard of his death. Would he be glad that there was no more chance of his being exposed as the incendiary of his own building? Harry hardly knew what to think. It never occurred to him to suspect that Squire Turner was responsible for his abduction and for his present condition.
So the night wore slowly away. When the first gray streaks of dawn broke upon the ocean, the Sea Eagle was more than fifty miles away. Harry was still wakeful. His intense mental action had kept sleep at a distance.
As soon as the light had increased a little he began to look about anxiously in every direction. There was one chance of life, and he clung to that. He might be seen from some approaching vessel and picked up. This chance was small enough. The avenues of the ocean are so many and so broad, that no ship can be depended upon to keep the course of another. What chance was there, in the brief time Harry could hope to hold out, that any vessel would come near enough for him to be seen and rescued?