The famous detective was one of the first to rush over to the side of the ship when the alarm had been given.
Close by him were his two assistants, Chick and Patsy Garvan, who, in the rôles of common sailors, had come down to Porto Rico to help him get back the fortune in jewels which had been stolen from Stephen Reed, the well-known New York millionaire.
“Who is it, chief?” asked Patsy, forcing his way to the front.
“I haven’t heard.”
“One of the crew, I suppose?” hazarded Chick.
“No doubt. There is only one passenger on board now, Paul Clayton. It isn’t he, for there he is, behind you.”
Meanwhile, under orders from Captain Bill Lawton himself, two life rings, each with some thirty fathoms of line attached, had been hurled over in the direction of where the drowning man might be expected to be.
It was too dark to make out plainly anything in the water, but a sharp lookout was kept for an hour, until the vessel reached her anchorage and the “mud hooks” were let go.
“Well, we couldn’t do any better,” grunted Captain Lawton, through his shaggy mustache, as he and his big, two-fisted first mate, Van Cross, stood together on the bridge. “We might have a roll call of the crew. I don’t know who it was went over. I reckon it wasn’t anybody who might have become President of the United States, nor nothing like that.”
The saturnine skipper gave vent to a husky “Haw-haw!” at his own joke, and Van Cross joined in with an equally raucous guffaw.