Ralph's situation now became doubly trying. To venture to board the schooner might prove his destruction. To remain in the yawl was to court a lingering and terrible death.
Already the pangs of hunger were almost unendurable. He drank from the keg, then measured the contents with a splinter. It was half empty. Twenty-four more hours of this and then——
"Come what will," he resolved, "I shall try to board the vessel. One may as well die one way as another."
After some reflection he took apart his mast and used the six foot strips as oars, finding that he made a little progress, though the task was fatiguing and the movement exasperatingly slow.
Meanwhile the noise on the Wanderer grew hideous. The idle, untrimmed manner in which the sails swung, was a fearful indication that the untrained negroes were masters. When within two hundred yards he took a careful survey. The whole deck and the lower rigging were alive with blacks shouting, gesticulating, acting more like lunatics than sane beings.
Something at the stern window again attracted his notice. It was a handkerchief being waved. He answered the signal by waving his hat. Then to Ralph's surprise and delight a white face was cautiously protruded.
"I'll help that man off or die for it," was his next thought as he bent once more to the task of rowing.
Had not the ocean been calm he would have made no headway. As it was, when he drew up some thirty yards from the schooner's stern, he was for the moment completely exhausted.
Turning round, he recognized with joy the pale blood-stained face at the window.
"In heaven's name!" cried the boy. "What has happened? Are any more of you alive?"