Chapter Eleven.
Dangers multiply.
For a moment I could not believe my senses. I fell like a person in a dreadful dream. What, Jim gone! The brig again dismasted, and I left alone on board her with the body of our dead captain! I was recalled to myself by hearing a faint shout, and looking over the stern I saw my old friend struggling amidst the waves some distance off.
My first impulse was to leap into the sea and swim to his rescue, but then the thought happily came to me that if I did we should be unable to regain the vessel; so, instead, crying out, “Keep up, Jim—keep up, I’ll help you!” I did what was far more likely to prove effectual—I unrove the peak-halliards, cutting them clear with my knife, and fastened one end to the wooden grating over the cabin sky-light. This I threw overboard, and as I feared that the halliards would not prove long enough, I bent on another rope to them. The grating appeared to be dropping astern very fast; and yet Jim, who was swimming strongly, seemed to be nearing it very slowly, by which I knew that the brig must still, urged on by the impetus she had before received, be moving through the water. Securing the line, I therefore put down the helm, and completely stopped her way. All was done faster than I have described it.
Springing back to the taffrail, with straining eyes I watched Jim, for more I could not do to help him, except to give an occasional shout to cheer him up. The dreadful thought came that there might be sharks about, or that his strength might fail him before he could reach the grating. I did more than cheer, though—I prayed to God with all my soul that Jim might be saved. Often he seemed scarcely to be moving through the water—now he threw himself on his back to rest—then he once more struck bravely out, replying as he did so to my cheer. At length he got near the grating. My heart gave a bound of joy as I saw him seize it, when he gradually drew himself up and lay flat on its surface, the best way for making it afford him support.
With a shout to Jim to hold on, I began to haul in the raft till I brought it under the quarter.
“Wait a minute, Jim, while I get a tackle ready to haul you on board,” I cried out.
This did not take me the time I said, and forming a bowline I lowered it to him. He seemed so exhausted that I was afraid lest in trying to pass it over his shoulders he might slide off the grating; and I was about to go down to assist him, when, seeing the rope, he slipped his arms through it and exclaimed, “Haul away, Peter.”