The mate, who was near one end, climbed cautiously past the other man until he reached Raymond. Then he knotted the long loose end of line around the boy’s body under his arms in such a way that it could not draw tight, and yet so securely that Raymond could not be washed off. When that was done, he found there was still rope left, and he said to Sidney,—
“Shall I lash you too, sir? It will be safer.”
“I wish you would,” replied Sidney. “I may be able to hold on, but I am not sure. Thank God, my brother is safe.”
It was not long after that when Raymond’s hands lost their grip and he hung, an inert weight, from the rope. Then, after the raft was free of a towering wave that had broken over it, Smith’s place was vacant. When Captain Foster discovered their loss, he besought the men who were left to have courage.
“Don’t lose heart,” he said to them. “Watson, remember your family, and, Jack, that old mother of yours. I think we must be in the route from Fiume to Ancona, and there may be some traffic yet between Austria and Italy, so I fancy we stand a good chance of being picked up.”
“I shall hang on, sir,” replied Watson, “as long as any one. My missus can’t support the children alone.”
As the man finished speaking, the raft mounted the crest of a huge swell, and the mate and Jack sang out simultaneously,—
“Ship ahoy!”
There was barely time to see a steamer that was bearing down upon them not far away, when the raft plunged into the trough again. With the next rise, however, there was a good view of a long steamer with four funnels, that lay low in the water, coming up against the wind.
“It’s a destroyer,” said Captain Foster, “probably an Austrian. Well, better an Austrian than none at all.”