There was an embarrassing moment as Tom and Bob seated themselves on the log, while the crew stood awkwardly by. They seemed uncertain what to do or say to these brave young fellows, whom they now knew had risked their lives to save their leader. With boy-like reticence, they were too ashamed to speak. Harvey broke the silence.
“The fellows and I don’t know hardly what to say to you,” he said. “The crew want to tell you how ashamed we all are for the way we have treated you, and they want to thank you for what you did for me; but they can’t begin to tell what they feel,—and no more can I,—but they want me to speak for them, too, as I’ve been their captain in all we’ve done, as well as aboard the yacht.
“They know what you did for me,” continued Harvey. “I told them the whole story this morning. There never was anything braver than what you did, and they all know it now as well as I do. They know you were as near drowning as I was, at the last, and you wouldn’t give up and let me go, but stuck to me till the end, and couldn’t have saved your own lives if there had been another rod to go.
“I wouldn’t be here now, if it wasn’t for you—”
“Well, you would have done the same for us, and so would the crew,” said Tom, eager to spare the other’s mortification as much as possible, and feeling his heart kindling toward his late enemy.
“I don’t know whether I should or not,” replied Harvey. “I don’t think I’m so much of a coward, even if I have been doing things that look that way. But that doesn’t make our position any the better. It isn’t what we would have done for you in the same danger that counts. It’s what we have been doing to you ever since you landed on the island that makes our case so bad.”
“I tell you,” Harvey exclaimed, vehemently, as he arose from the log, “we’ve been a lot of fools and we’ve been thinking all the time that we were smart. It just came to me like a flash, as I thought I was going down out there, all the mean things I’ve been doing and what a fool I’ve been. I knew it all the time, too, I guess, only I didn’t care. But you fellows have just brought it home to us hard, and we are going to try to square things up all that we can.
“Now, first,” continued Harvey, taking a long breath and speaking earnestly, “we’re sorry we stole that box of yours from off the wharf. We knew it was yours all the time, too, though I said we didn’t. Of course we couldn’t help knowing. We don’t blame you, either, for blowing up the cave—”
“We didn’t intend really to blow it up,” interrupted Tom. “That was my idea, to burn up some of the stuff, just to get even, and we were nearly scared to death when the explosion came off. We thought you were all killed.”
“Well, I believe you now,” said Harvey, “although I didn’t before. I can see just how it happened, too. The fact is, we had some powder and kerosene there, hidden away. That’s what caused it. Well, anyway, we don’t blame you for setting the fire, and we shouldn’t blame you now, if you had meant to blow up the cave, too. We deserved it.”