Suddenly, with startling energy, he shouted out, “Wear ship! Up with the helm! Square away the after-yards!”
The ship went on plunging into the heavy seas as she made a wide circuit, the yards being again braced up on the other tack.
Chapter Six.
The Lilly, brought to the wind, once more stood back along the course on which she had just before been sailing. She was then hove to. By the captain’s calculations, she had reached the locality where Bill had fallen overboard. All hands were on deck and every eye strained, endeavouring to pierce the thick gathering gloom in the direction where it was supposed he might still be.
Friendly voices shouted out,—“Bill Sunnyside! Sunshine Bill! Answer, lad! Answer!” Still no reply came.
“I knew it would be so,” muttered old Grim. “The lad was always boasting of being in such good luck, or something of that sort. And now this is what his good luck has come to. Well, well, his fate has been that of many, so there’s nothing strange in it.”
With this philosophical remark old Grim walked forward; but still, somehow or other, his heart felt sorry at losing the poor lad, and he went and peered down to leeward and then looked to windward again, in the hopes that his eyes, which were among the sharpest on board, might catch a glimpse of the lad. If he was clinging to the life-buoy he might be all right, but where that was, was the question. Minutes passed away, and still no one could discover Bill. The captain pulled out his watch and went to the binnacle-lamp.
“Twenty minutes,” he remarked to Mr Collinson. “A strong man could scarcely swim as long in such a sea as this.”