At once Tom Jarvis broke in. "I want the six best oarsmen here. You, Jorgenson! You, Toppy! Bo'sun, take your place in the stem."
Red Mitchell slipped back into the shadow. The cook's eyes passed over him as he chose his men. In a moment, the six had taken their places on the thwarts of the lifeboat.
"Put on the life belts, lads!" called Jarvis. "Wait —we want someone to bail."
As his eyes swept the group, Tod sprang forward. "Let me!" he beseeched in a voice vibrant with earnestness. "I can bail."
Jarvis nodded curtly. "Get in!"
With pounding heart Tod clambered over the gunwale into the swaying boat. Toppy pulled him down into a seat beside him. "Put this blarsted life belt on, kid," he said quickly. "And here's yer bucket. You got work ahead."
The whaleboat, already lifted sufficiently to clear the cradles, was now swung out on its davits by the men on deck, till it hung clear of the side, ready for lowering. With the weather on the starboard beam, the Araby now had a perceptible list to port. Tod pulled his cap low over his eyes and fastened the belt about his waist. He was dimly aware that the Tattooed Man was taking his place in the stern sheets, an ax in his hand for emergency.
"Lower away together!"
Nelson stood at the ropes of the after fall, another seaman at the forward, both in readiness to cast adrift when the boat struck the water. Tod dropped on his knees to the rounding bottom, one hand clasping the gunwale, while Toppy and the men in the waist thwarts held the boat away from the side of the ship.
The glow of the searchlight vanished above. The boat floated in a void. Night, mysterious and evil, encompassed them. Below, the boy heard the foaming waves leaping hungrily toward them out of the darkness, drawing nearer, ever nearer.
In the stern the shadowy form of the Tattooed Man was barely visible. Abruptly his voice thundered out above the roar of wind and wave:
"Ready, lads. Let go the after fall!.. Cast adrift!"
Water swished greedily about the sides of the boat. Tod saw the cook throw his weight against the long sweep oar in its crutch at the stern, and swing the stem of the boat out toward that wintry flood of wind and sea. The round lights of the Araby slowly forged ahead.
"Pull like the devil!" sang out the voice of their leader.
The whaleboat, of the New Bedford type, light and seaworthy with its airtight tanks, rode the waves buoyantly. In the bow a hurricane lantern with a leaping flame made a pinpoint of light in the surrounding blackness. Crouched in the bottom of the tossing boat was Tod, bucket in hand. In front and behind him the men pulled at their oars, the muscles of their backs and legs working with the easy precision of experienced oarsmen. The boat rose swiftly on a wave, then fell with sickening suddenness into the trough. For a second two oars swung wildly in the air, while the foam seethed and swirled about the frail sides of the craft.
Of a sudden a shadowy wave, mountain high, bore down upon them. Gallantly their fragile boat rose to meet it. As they lay poised above a hollow trough an icy spray descended upon them. Down the incline they plunged. Tod dipped his bucket in the slushing bilge and flung the water overside. The snowy foam swirled past. The water, perishing cold, numbed his hands. His legs grew chilled and cramped. Salt brine stung his eyes into wakefulness. The men dragged at their oars in silent, steady movements. Their commander in the stern cheered them on with a voice of thunder that was carried away on the shrieking wind.
Back in the wake of the ship went the lifeboat. The Araby, Tod saw, was a cluster of lights swinging round in a circle toward the point where the stoker had been lost overboard. Behind her, off to the south and west, there were intermittent flashes of lightning.
In a hollow depression of the towering waves Tom Jarvis yelled to the boatswain in the bow. "About there, bo'sun?"
"Almost, sir."
"Think the stoker—got a life buoy?"
"I'm sure—he did! I threw two—from the poop." His voice was lost in the hum of the gale.
Overhead, a moon, cold and gray, appeared behind scudding clouds. It fitfully lighted the heaving ocean. The spray flashed in silver sheets across Tod's vision. The bitter wind stung his face; the spume rattled like shot against his life belt. Still he grasped his bucket, bailing, bailing.
It seemed hours to him before he heard the boatswain's triumphant cry: "To port—to port! There it is!"
As the boat hovered for an instant above a cavernous hollow, Tod glimpsed a white object swaying in the foam.
"Pull, lads, pull!" Jarvis flung his great weight against the steering oar. The boat careened perilously to the right.
Tod strained his eyes through the gloom. Down the slant flew the boat. Unexpectedly, a white life ring grated softly alongside.
"God! It's empty!"
Nelson the Dane caught the ring and lifted it, dripping, inboard. It fell to the bottom with a deadening thud. The men made no sound.
The Tattooed Man flung out an arm. "Where's the other?" he boomed. "Bo'sun, look sharp. Pull, lads; we'll get him yet!"
Again the blades of the oars dipped rhythmically. Again the boat rose on the waves and fell, while the wind howled past them across that dark immensity of moving ocean.
Tod glanced round. Fired by the thought of the proximity of the second life buoy, he tried to pierce that wall of encircling gloom. The waves dissolved in the night. An occasional crest of white and green appeared for a second, only to melt again into oblivion. The whine of the wind decreased. The Tattooed Man sent a gull-like cry flying over the water; but no answer came out of the profound darkness.
The moon suddenly slid from behind a scurrying cloud. Tod's heart leaped. The pale light revealed to port and incredibly near them the half-submerged circle of the second life buoy.
"Pull, lads!" yelled Jarvis exultantly. "He's there!"
The boat quivered under the strain of the oars. The men were aflame with hope. Tod's hands gripped the gunwale. He hardly breathed as he watched that white circle draw near.
Clinging to it was a man. One arm was thrown over the ring; his head was swaying listlessly against a sodden shoulder.
The boatswain reached him first. Stretching forth an arm he pulled the ring toward the boat. He grasped the man below the arms. Jorgenson, leaning over the gunwale, put a hand under the soggy knees, and together they lifted the inert, dripping body of the stoker into the boat. The wan light showed a face blue with cold and exhaustion. The eyes were half open, the teeth chattering.
"Wave your light, bose," called Jarvis. "We must make the ship—quick!"
Swaying in the stem, the boatswain swung aloft his lantern in a wide arc against the sky. A moment later four short blasts of the ship's whistle came back on the wind. The Araby had seen.
Jorgenson, in his slow, placid way, was working over the stoker. Tod dropped the bucket and, taking hold of a limp hand, began rubbing it quickly. It was cold, clammy cold, as if all life had departed.
"Oh, Gord! We're too late!" wailed Toppy. "He's a goner."
"Shut up!" snapped Jarvis from the stern sheets. "Don't begin that—till we get aboard. Look out, boys! We're a-swinging round."
The little cockney dragged at his oar. "Blimey!" he said in Tod's ear. "Ain't we the blarsted fools? We come out—in this whoopin' gale—to save this blighter!"
"But he's a man, isn't he?"
"Naw! He's a stokehole rat." Toppy spat viciously into the heaving, moonlit sea. "And that cook," he whispered as he leaned over his oar, "he's stark, starin' mad!"
Tod raised his eyes to the man in the stern. It was a Viking who stood there with his feet planted wide apart, his hands gripping the sweep, his head thrown back, and the wind whipping his closely cropped hair. Beneath the straight white brow the pits of his eyes stared out across the waves as though he were peering into another world.