“So did I,” said Tom; and he took out his watch, intending to look at it by the light of the binnacle lamp, when at that instant the lamp went out. The oil had been exhausted, and there was no more in the can. Pat, he had reason to fear, had taken a pull at it unperceived.
He struck a match, and saw it was just ten o’clock. There could be no doubt, then, that the bell they heard was that on board a ship; still it was so faint that she was probably a long way off.
Tom could now only steer by the wind, which, however, he believed was holding steady. He had settled with Desmond to go about at four bells, and to keep on the starboard tack until midnight, then again to go about. He had just ordered Pat to let fly the jib sheet, and had put down the helm, when, as the boat was in stays, Pat sang out—
“A sail right ahead!” What was Tom’s horror at that instant to see a vast pyramid of sail towering above him. The next moment a crash was heard; the stranger’s stem struck the boat’s bow. At the sound Desmond and Jerry sprang to their feet. Instinctively they knew that they had been run down, and simultaneously they uttered shouts of “Help, help!” Ropes were hove to them by the look-out men on the stranger’s forecastle. Tom put one into the hands of Billy, who was too much alarmed to know what to do, while he himself grasped another. Pat had caught hold of the dolphin striker, and was making his way up to the bowsprit. Jerry grasped another rope, and all three swarmed up until they met friendly hands to assist them. Tom supposed that Desmond and Tim were following, but, as he looked back, what was his dismay to see the boat drifting away. The crash he had heard convinced him that her side must have been stove in, and that she must sink almost immediately.
“There are two men clinging to the craft you ran down, sir. In mercy’s sake, lower a boat and pick them up,” he shouted out.
“Aye, aye,” was the answer.
And he thankfully heard the order given to shorten sail and bring the ship to the wind. Rushing aft, he found a party of men preparing to lower a boat. He begged to go in her. Before she was in the water Jerry joined him, and, together with three other hands, they shoved off. He then saw that she was a whaleboat. One of the men, an officer he concluded, took the steering oar.
“Desmond! Tim!” he shouted out.
No answer came. The boat must have gone down, but they could both swim well.
“Do you know the bearings?” he asked of the mate.