The boy hastened aft and released the flagpole from its socket. Reverently he bore the colors forward.
“Now wave them with all your might!” came the order.
As Jack, with all the power his muscular young arms could command, waved the colors, strenuously renewed cheers came from the battleships. They were in response to a burst of cheers from the company of the White Shark, among whom Jim Harding stood waving to his shipmates,—a man literally snatched from a double grave.
Across the back of the submarine, almost amidships, was a deep dent; but no other harm had been done. The battleship had struck her a glancing blow just as she dived, but had it come an inch closer the injury would have proved fatal to the career of the White Shark and its crew.
“Come aboard!” bellowed an officer of the Manhattan Island as the White Shark moved ’longside the gangway to send the sailor Harding back on board.
“No time. Thanks just the same,” rejoined Mr. Chadwick.
“Can we do anything for you?”
“Nothing at all, thanks. Good-bye!”
“Jove, you are brave men, and those boys are the salt of the earth,” came from another officer on the bridge.
“You had a jolly close shave, though,” reminded another. “We thought you were gone for a minute.”