"We're lost!" he cried.
The roaring wind, the hiss of the seas, the shock and wreck, the sudden, dreadful peril, had thrown the lad into a panic. The skipper perceived his distress, and acted promptly to restore him to his manhood.
"Leave me free!" he shouted, with a scowl.
But Billy tightened his grip on the skipper's arm, and sobbed and whined. The skipper knocked him down with a blow on the breast; then jerked him to his feet and pointed to the pump.
"Pump for your life!" he commanded, knowing well that what poor Billy needed was work, of whatever kind, to give him back his courage.
CHAPTER XIV
Faithfully Narrating the Amazing Experiences of a Newfoundland Schooner and Describing Billy Topsail's Conduct in a Sinking Boat
THE deck of the Rescue was now littered with wreckage and casks. Splinters of the jib-boom, all tangled with the standing rigging, lay upon the forward deck. The maintopmast had snapped off, and hung from the mainmast in a tangle of wire and rope. They had already cut the mainsail halyards, and the big sail lay upon the boom, on the port side, in disarrayed folds.