“What are we to do?” asked Jack dismally.
“Hold on where you are,” said Ben; “and if we upset stay quiet in the water till you’re picked up.”
With which consoling piece of advice Jack and I subsided, and asked no more questions.
The sight of a column of lurid flame and smoke made us wonder for a moment whether the vessel in distress was not on fire as well as wrecked. But I recollected that the “Wolf King” had burned tar-barrels all night long as a signal of distress, and this we rightly concluded was what was taking place on board “our” wreck.
Ben’s “jiffey” seemed a good while coming to an end, and long before it did we passed once more into broken water, and the perils of the start were repeated, with the aggravation that we were now across the wind instead of being head on. Wave after wave burst over us, and time after time, as we hung suspended on the crest of some great billow, it seemed as if we never could right ourselves. But we did.
“Stand by!” cried the coxswain, when at last a great dim black outline appeared on our starboard.
Instantly the men were in their seats; oars were put out; the mast and sail came down, and the clank of the anchor being got ready for use fell on our ears from the bows.
The wreck was now right between us and the shore, we being some distance to the windward of it. My knowledge of the story of the wreck of the “Wolf King” gave me a pretty good notion of what was going on, and even in the midst of our peril I found myself whispering to Jack—
“They’re going to drop the anchor, you know, and blow down on to her—”
“Hope they’ve got rope enough,” said Jack. For in the case of the “Wolf King” it took three attempts to get within the right distance. The coxswain of the “Dreadnought” was evidently determined not to fall into his old error this time, and, with her head to the wind and the oars holding the water, he allowed her to drift to within about eighty yards of the wreck. Then he shouted—