For two or three minutes he waited for an answering shout, but none came.
'What ho! what ho!' he sang out, and almost immediately he saw some lights moving about on the deck of the ship.
'Help, help!' he shouted with all his strength.
'Coming,' was the faint reply that reached him, and almost at the same moment he noticed that a boat was being lowered.
'We shall be picked up in a few minutes,' he said to Ping Wang, and the good news had such a reviving effect upon the Chinaman that he turned over and began to swim again.
'Lie still,' Charlie shouted, knowing that his companion's strength would otherwise soon expire.
Ping Wang obeyed instantly.
'Where are you?' the men in the boat called out.
'Here,' Charlie answered, and so that the boat might not have much difficulty in finding them, he hailed her every few moments.
Sometimes he caught sight of her on the top of a wave, and then he would see nothing more of her for quite a minute. But at last she reached them.