A Sailor Boy with Dewey. Stratemeyer Edward
it hadn't been for you no accident would have happened." For a wonder, his fright had quite sobered him, even though he was half crazy as before mentioned.
There was not much to get, for we knew that trunks or even traveling bags would not be taken into the small boats. I donned a little extra clothing and was about to get out my money belt, containing some gold and silver and a draft on a Manila banking institution, when a call from above reached us.
"To the boats! To the boats!" came the cry from the deck, and a scurry of footsteps followed. Grabbing each other by the hand we leaped for the companion way, to find our passage blocked by Captain Kenny.
"Let us up!" cried Dan, and tried to get past the man, but the captain merely shoved him back.
"I'm the one to go—you can stay here, hang ye!" he hissed.
"Stay here? Not much!" I burst out, and catching him by the legs, I shot him up on deck as if he had been fired from a spring gun. He tried to turn and strike me, but I avoided the blow with ease.
The Dart had now settled so much that every wave washed her deck from stem to stern. "Look out, or you'll go down!" roared Dan in my ear, but the caution was not needed, for I was already exercising all the care possible in making my way to the boat Tom Dawson was to command.
There were four small craft and twenty of us all told. This gave five persons to a boat, the first being in command of Captain Kenny, the second in command of Tom Dawson, while the second mate and the boatswain had the others under their care.
"I reckon you two want to keep together," said Dawson, as we reached his side. "I can't blame you, but——"
"Don't put those two landlubbers in one boat!" roared Captain Kenny. "It's bad enough to have 'em at all. Put one in your boat and one in Brown's," indicating the second mate.
"Oh, can't we go together?" I whispered to Dawson.
"We ought to have at least four experienced sailors in each boat," was the mate's reply. "Do as the captain commanded, and we'll see if we can't keep the small boats together."
And with this he shoved Dan into his own boat and turned me back to join the party under Watt Brown, the second mate.
My heart now beat more painfully than ever. "Good-by, Dan, if we don't meet again!" I said huskily.
"Good-by, Oliver," he answered. "Oh, if only we could go together!" And then we parted in the darkness, and I scuttled for the boat that was already awaiting me.
How we ever got over the Dart's side and away from the settling schooner I cannot describe to this day. Amid the roar of thunder and the flashing of lightning, the small boat was swung out. Three sailors were at the oars, while the mate stood ready with a hatchet to cut the davit ropes. Down we went, to strike the rolling sea with a resounding smack that almost pitched me overboard. "Steady now! Pull! pull!" came the command, and away the sailors pulled, while a bit of rope snapped down and hit me across the cheek, nearly blinding me. For the next few minutes I felt as if I was roller-coasting up one mountain side and down another.
When I was able to look around me another flash of lightning lit up the scene. Behind us rested the Dart, well over on her port side, as though getting ready to take her final plunge beneath the waves of the sea. To the left of us was one small boat and to the right the others.
"Are we away all right?" I asked of the second mate.
"Can't say—yet," was his laconic answer, and I felt that he did not wish to be questioned further. I wanted to aid in handling the boat, but was not allowed to do anything. "Just wait, lad, your time may come," said one of the sailors grimly, and I shuddered, for I knew what he meant—that it might be many a weary day before we would sight land, if land were sighted at all. Perhaps that very sea upon which we were riding would prove our open grave.
Five minutes passed in painful suspense and then the lightning lit up the firmament again. "Look! look!" yelled Watt Brown, and at the sound of the second mate's voice all in the boat turned, to see one of the craft to our starboard founder beneath a curling wave that looked higher than a six-story office building.
"What boat is that?" I cried.
"Don't know exactly, but it looked like Tom Dawson's," was the answer, which almost prostrated me. Was it possible that Dan had been lost thus quickly?
"Won't you try to pick them up?" I went on, when I could speak. "Surely you won't forsake them!"
"We'll try it—but it's wuss nor looking for a pin in a haystack," was the second mate's reply. "To starboard, boys, but don't get caught under a capper, or it will be all up with us." And then our own craft veered around and moved slowly and painfully over the billows to the spot where the other small boat had gone down.
CHAPTER IV.
THE RESCUE OF THE UNWORTHY ONE.
I was in a tremble of excitement, and for the moment forgot all about my own peril. Since coming to the far East, or West, as you will, I had become greatly attached to Dan Holbrook; indeed he seemed like a brother to me. If he was lost, what would I do, even if we were fortunate to reach some part of the Island of Luzon, upon which the city of Manila is located?
But a treacherous wave, mountain-high, brought me to a sudden realization of my own condition.
"Hold hard!" I heard Watt Brown yell, and I held to the seat with all of my might, and this was all that prevented me from being swept overboard.
We had shipped a good deal of water, and I was ordered to bail out the small craft, while the sailors continued at the oars, assisted by the second mate. There was a big dipper handy and I think I can truthfully say that I never worked harder in my life than I did then, meanwhile continuing to hold on with one hand.
It was fully ten minutes ere we reached the locality where the small boat had foundered. In the meanwhile flash after flash of lightning had lit up the scene, showing the Dart far to the northward, driving rapidly before the fury of the storm. But at last distance and the steady downpour of rain hid the vessel from view, and we could not tell if she sunk or not.
"A man!" It was the second mate who uttered the words, and a head bobbed up just alongside of our bow. At once the mate dropped his oar and seized the individual by his hair. Then he caught hold of an arm and in a trice the fellow was on board, where he fell in a heap at the bottom of our craft. It was Captain Kenny.
"The captain's boat," observed Watt Brown, and I breathed a long sigh of relief, thinking that Dan might yet be safe. "I wonder if Yarson, Betts, Camar, and Dilwoddy are floating around?"
He referred to the four sailors that had accompanied the captain in the first boat. Standing up as best he could, he waited for another flash of lightning and gazed around hurriedly. Not another soul was in sight.
"They are gone, I am afraid," he murmured. "Keep her head up, lads, and I'll take another look."
"Never mind the others," growled Captain Kenny, struggling to a seat. "We must save ourselves. Pull on, or we'll be swamped."
"You wretch!" I cried indignantly. "Supposing we had left you to shift for yourself?"
"Shut up, boy, or——"
"The lad is right, captain," interrupted Watt Brown. "It was no more to us to save you than it is to save Betts and the rest. Remember, the Dart has been abandoned and now one man is as good as another."
"Do you mean to say I am not still in command?" roared Captain Kenny in a fury that was positively silly.
"No, you're not!" spoke up one of the men at the oars. "Sit still, or I'll be in for heaving you overboard again,"