Mr. Briggs shoved the Norwegian headlong, and David leaped into the boat just as the creaking falls began to lower her from the davits. The boat swung between sea and sky as the liner rolled far down to leeward and back again. Then in a smother of broken water the stout life-boat met the rising sea, the automatic tackle set her free, and she was shoved away in the nick of time to escape being shattered against the steamer.
As the seven seamen and the cadet tugged madly at the sweeps and the boat climbed the slope of a green swell, Mr. Briggs shouted:
"She can't last much longer. Lay into it, my buckos. Give it to her. There's a woman on board, God bless her. I can see her skirt. No, it's a little girl. She's lashed aft with the skipper. Now break your backs. H-e-a-v-e a-l-l!"
CHAPTER II THE SEA WAIFS
As the liner's life-boat drew nearer the foundering hulk, the men at the oars could see how fearful was the plight of the handful of survivors. The arms of a gray-haired man were clasped around a slip of a girl, whose long, fair hair whipped in the wind like seaweed. They were bound fast to a jagged bit of the mizzen-mast and appeared to be lifeless. Far forward amid a tangle of rigging and broken spars, three seamen sprawled upon the forecastle head. If any of them were alive, they were too far gone to help save themselves.
Just beyond the innermost ring of oil-streaked sea there was a patch of quiet water, and as the boat hovered on the greasy swells, the third officer called to his men:
"One of us must swim aboard with a line."