When Sidney realized that they would have no chance to leap for safety, he tried to grasp his brother, but the suddenly tilting deck threw him against the side of the companionway, where he seized the edge of the opening, and held fast with desperate energy.
For a moment he had a wild idea that only by maintaining his hold of the ship could he be saved, and he clung tenaciously to the casing. The water surged about him as he was dragged through it with terrific force. By closing his mouth tightly he kept himself from strangling, but the suction and the pressure were stupefying.
Then it flashed into his mind that he was being dragged to certain death, instead of being saved. Instantly he let go. The speed of the descending vessel had decreased somewhat with the depth reached, but the relief of pressure, which had become agonizing, was heavenly.
For a few moments after Sidney relinquished his hold he hung wavering in the wake of the plunging ship, which was still followed by the eddying currents of water. Then the buoyancy of his body, together with that of the life-preserver, shot him upward. Instinctively, too, he aided that upward movement by his own effort, the well-directed effort of a practiced swimmer.
Fortunately there was no wreckage floating at the spot where he reached the surface, and what a blessed thing it was to breathe the air again! The time he was being dragged down with the ship had been measured by seconds, but it was quite long enough, when he was once more in the free air, to make him feel that he had been restored to life.
Sidney’s presence of mind in keeping his mouth closed had prevented the water from entering his lungs, so that he was able at once to look around to see who else might be near him. His first thought was of Raymond. Looking out over the water that was still agitated by the sinking ship, at first there was nothing evident but confusion, for the surface was thickly sprinkled with wreckage. There was every article that had been loose on the ship’s deck, to which were added many pieces of splintered and shattered planking that had been torn from the vessel’s bottom by the explosion.
Sidney supported himself by treading water, and raising himself high, gazed about him. He saw here and there amidst the flotsam the head of a man who was clinging to some piece of wood. Presently, away on the other side of the circle of waste he saw his brother.
“O—h, Ray!” he called.
Raymond, also, was intently examining the surface of the water, and immediately he distinguished Sidney.
“I’ll swim over there, Ray,” called Sidney when he saw that he was observed.