"Ding bust it," cried the old man at last, "what ye crying about? She's not drownded, I tell ye. She's coming to." And the captain was right. First there was a little quiver of the eyelids, then a faint sigh from her lips, and finally a soft moan.
"Thank God!" said the captain. "The pore little girl will be all right in a few minutes. But I say, it was a narrow squeak. Frank Armstrong, you deserve the Carnegie medal for that same trick."
Frank was on his feet again, and, although white and a little sick, he was able to help Jimmy with the tiller, while the captain kept up his ministrations to the little girl, who opened her eyes at last and looked about her.
"You'll be sound as a dollar in half an hour," said the captain, as he finally turned her over to the maid, who had by this time quieted down. Captain Silas went aft and took the tiller from the boys.
"That was a good turn you did for old man Simpkins," he observed. "That's his little girl you saved from a watery death. Guess he'll feel different about that motor boat now," and the old captain smiled grimly.
Before the Seagull reached the dock the participators in what had nearly been a tragedy were rapidly recovering. Frank was still wobbly on his legs, but quickly recovered his spirits. "Thank you, old man," he said to Jimmy as they disembarked. "If it hadn't been for you, both of us would have gone down. I didn't have the strength to keep even myself up and I wouldn't have let her go down alone." The two friends gave a silent pressure of the hand.
"It was nothing," said Jimmy. "I went after you as quickly as I could. It seemed to me you were down fully five minutes, and I had about given you up when your head bobbed through the surface."
"Seemed to me I was down about an hour, and I guess I must have been fifteen or twenty feet under when I got her. But it's all over now, and I'm glad."
The gallant rescue was the talk of Seawall that night. Captain Silas sat at the end of the pier with a group around him, and Frank's daring deed lost nothing by the captain's telling. But Frank was silent on the matter himself and denied that he had done anything to talk about. From him, his father and mother could only get the bare facts that he had jumped overboard and pulled in a little girl who had had the bad luck to fall into the water.