A Cadet of the Black Star Line

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

As he lay propped against a thwart the owner's back was toward David at his oar. The cadet had no idea that he had ever clapped eyes on him before, and he listened with eager interest to the answers which the other men gave to Mr. Briggs's questions.

"The rest of us are in two boats, somewhere to the eastward, sir," they explained. "No, there was nobody left on board. The way it was, the captain and them others was fightin' the fire aft, and they got cut off from us who was driven clear up into the bows of her before we got through. She was just a solid blaze amidships, understand, and there was no getting back to each other. The other crowd stood it as long as they could, and then when it was take to the water or be frizzled where they stood, they pitched the boats over and got away. The fog hadn't begun to lift then. They were going to lay by and wait for us, but the blazin' heat below set her engines goin' in a kind of dying flurry and she ran a while before she stopped for good. We couldn't get below to stop her, and we couldn't go overboard for fear of bein' chewed up by the screw, and so there we stuck up forward till we could get the raft over. The two boats lost us in the fog, and you know the rest of it."

"The owner's boy was with the captain's crowd aft. Mr. Cochran put him in the skipper's charge when things looked desperate," explained the mate of the Restless. "When Mr. Cochran got separated from the lad and couldn't get aft to him, and saw him drift out of sight in the fog, he just threw up his hands and went clean off his head."

"Mr. Cochran! The owner's boy!" gasped David Downes. He leaned over and raised the pallid face of the owner of the Restless. Yes, although sadly changed, it was the once pompous and lordly man of millions who had rescued, befriended, and then forsaken him in New York. And Arthur, the slim, delicate lad with the shy, confiding smile who had been so fond of the cadet—poor lad, he was adrift in an open boat beyond help from the Roanoke's boat. David forgot all the resentment he had cherished against the father, as he tried to heave him into a more comfortable position and anxiously searched his face for signs of life.

"He was a fine boy. Heart as big as a cork fender," said a Restless seaman. "God bring him safe to port, say I. Will we be after goin' in search of the boats, do you know?"

Mr. Briggs shook his head reluctantly. He must return to the Roanoke with all haste.

"We have done all we can," he answered slowly. "Our own ship needs us, and we are lucky to have done this much. It is awful tough on Mr. Cochran, I know, to leave his boy adrift, but we wouldn't have one chance in a million of finding them to-night."

These words seemed to awaken the dulled understanding of the father. He roused from his stupor and hoarsely quavered:

"Where is Arthur? Leave the boy adrift? What did I hear? What do you mean? There's some mistake. Look for him till you find him, I tell you. Oh, my boy, my boy, I never meant to forsake you."