For a full minute after the captain's words no one spoke. Then Bob, who was gripping the rail tightly with both hands, said: "But they must have taken to the boats. We can pick them up, can't we?"
"We can try," his uncle assured him.
"Turn on the searchlight, Pat," the captain ordered, "and you'd better slow her down to about half speed. We don't want to run any of them down."
Almost instantly a broad beam of light spread itself over the water in front of the boat which was already losing headway as the engineer obeyed the mate's signal.
"Keep her sweeping about and all of you use your eyes," the captain cried. "We don't want to miss them."
For some minutes the Valkyrie forged ahead and it seemed that they must have passed the spot where the steamer had gone down when, suddenly, Jack shouted: "There's one of them, off to the right there."
Just at that moment the mate shifted the searchlight a bit and, by its light, they could see a small boat rising and falling only a few hundred feet away.
"Stand by to throw them a rope," Captain Ole shouted to the sailors who were gathered on the deck below.
"Aye, aye, sir. We see them," was the reply.
First Mate Pat had already changed his course so as to bring the yacht alongside the smaller boat.