"I'd better run along, now, to pick 'em up, sir, hadn't I?" called Eph
Somers to the naval officer.
"By all means, Mr. Somers."
The steamship's boat, too, pulled by a strong, well-trained crew, was now getting close to the scene. So it came about that the liner's lifeboat picked up Jack, the girl and her brother. The middies, disdaining any such outside interference, calmly turned and made for the "Farnum."
The girl proved to be unconscious, the brother more than half-dazed.
"Bring them aboard," directed Mr. Trahern, briefly.
"Now, gentlemen, you've a chance to apply what you may know about first aid to the drowning," suggested Ensign Trahern, tersely.
Under that vigorous treatment Walter Carruthers, as the young man afterwards declared himself to be, was quickly brought around. The middies had much harder work in reviving the girl. Her brother sat by watching the work.
"Elsie isn't—isn't dead, is she?" asked the brother, anxiously.
"Oh, no," replied one of the midshipmen, suspending his rescue work for an instant. "In fact, if there were women here to do the work—loosening her corsets, and all that sort of thing, you know—Miss Carruthers would be sitting up in short time."
At last, the girl was made to open her eyes. She swallowed a little coffee, too.