''Bout time, too,' growled the big bluejacket.
Strang repeated his former orders, and this time they were obeyed without hesitation. Ken's heart beat thickly as he watched the prisoners hurrying into the boat which had been lowered from her davits to a level with the deck.
'Do you see your father yet?' Strang asked.
'Not yet, sir,' Ken answered, with his eyes fixed on the fast-filling boat.
'Sixteen—seventeen—eighteen,' he counted mechanically. Suddenly a slight cry escaped his lips, and he started forward.
'Father!' he shouted loudly.
An upright man with keen blue eyes, a man of about fifty, but whose hair and moustache were almost white, was in the act of getting to the boat. At Ken's cry, he started violently, stopped short and stared incredulously in the direction of the sound.
'Father!' shouted Ken again.
'You, Ken?' The tone was one of utter amazement.
'It's me all right, dad,' Ken answered in a voice which shook a little in spite of himself.