"Ship ahoy!" yelled the mate as the schooner came within a quarter of a mile and headed almost straight for them. He stood up and waved his arms. Nothing came of it. The girl awoke. She sat up and realized the position. In a moment she had taken off her skirt and handed it to the mate. He waved it wildly; and his yelling finally awoke the exhausted seaman. The man stood up and bawled loudly. Then he washed his mouth with salt water, and yelled again and again. James swung the skirt. The girl prayed audibly.
The schooner stood right along on her course. She had not noticed the boat. Passing a few hundred fathoms from them caused all three to become frantic. The men bawled, cursed, and begged the schooner to take them in.
The captain of the vessel, coming on deck, happened to look in their direction. He spoke to the man at the wheel, who for the first time seemed to take his eyes from the compass card. Then, taking his glass, the captain saw that three living souls were in the small boat. The next instant he was bawling orders, and the schooner hauled her wind and came slatting into the breeze.
Six men appeared on her deck. James saw them working to get the small boat clear from her stern davits. Then they seemed to realize that this was unnecessary, and the schooner, flattening in her sheets, worked up to them slowly, rising and falling into the high swell. She stood across to windward, and then came about, easing off her sheets and drifting slowly down upon the boat.
She drew close aboard.
"Catch a line," yelled the captain from her deck.
James waved his hand in reply, and a heaving line flaked out and fell across the boat's gunwales.
In another moment they were being hauled aboard.
Explanations came at once. The master of the schooner was bound for South America.
"Of course, I'll put you all aboard the first homeward-bound ship I fall in with," said he.