It was half an hour before their efforts were rewarded by a faint sigh and a flush of returning color in the livid cheeks. Then the boy opened his eyes, and gazed about him wonderingly for an instant. A few minutes later, wrapped in hot blankets, he fell asleep and was breathing regularly.
Almost the same scene was taking place in the cabin, only there it was so long before the patient showed the least sign of life that some of those who worked over him were several times ready to give up in despair. They were only kept at it by the skipper, who exclaimed,
“Great Scott, men! it will be a shame if we cannot fetch him to, after that boy has nearly given his life to save him. I, for one, shall work over him from now till noon before I will give him up.”
At last he, too, was brought back to the life from which he had so nearly departed, and by noon, when the sun came out, both patients were doing finely. Neither of them was allowed to leave his bunk until the next morning; but they were kept warm, and encouraged to sleep as much as possible. In their exhausted condition this was easy to do. So with only one or two awakenings to take the light nourishment that Mateo prepared for them, by the aid of his never-failing “lit tin cow,” they slept through the rest of the day and the whole of the night.
The next morning they awoke, filled with the life and energy that always wait upon youth and a sound constitution, and almost inclined to believe their recent adventure to be but a troubled dream. Only a few bruises, and the marks about their bodies of the ropes by which they had been drawn aboard the schooner, remained as traces of what they had undergone.
The sea had gone down so rapidly the day before that the crew of the Albatross had been able to resume their fishing by noon, and had had remarkably good-luck until night. By a mutual agreement, suggested by the man who had been watchmate with Breeze that morning, they devoted half an hour to their brave young comrade, and the entire catch of fish, made during that time, was credited to him in the ship’s books.
The next morning when Breeze came on deck he saw the skipper talking to a well-built young stranger, whose naturally ruddy face had not yet wholly recovered its color. For an instant he wondered who it could be, and where he had come from. Then it flashed across him that this was the person whom he had rescued from the sea; and, not knowing exactly what to do or say, he stood looking at him curiously.
The young stranger noticing him, said something to the skipper, who turned quickly and exclaimed,
“Good-morning, Breeze! Why, you are looking as fresh as a daisy. This is Mr. Wolfe Brady,” he added, indicating the lad who stood beside him. “Although you two have already been dorymates, he declares he has never seen you before, and I am certain you have never been introduced. Mr. Brady, Mr. McCloud.”
In assuming this jesting tone the skipper hoped to put the young men at their ease, and relieve their first meeting of the embarrassment they might naturally be expected to feel under the circumstances.