Just at that moment, however, the middy's faint hail rang again clearly out above the noise of the wind and the sea, to a.s.sure him he was still above the surface, and restore his drooping energies.

"Ahoy! Help! Ahoy!"

He did not require to hail again, for, the next moment overtopping another billow, his friend Jonathan shot up alongside of him, and grasped him by the shoulder.

"Oh, Dave," he exclaimed. "Thank G.o.d I've got you safe. I thought I would never have found you."

David had partly clambered up on the top of the wheelhouse, and lay stretched out with his legs in the water.

He raised his head and turned his face as Jonathan got hold of him.

His emotion was too great for many words.

"And you jumped overboard to save me?" was all he said.

But his look was enough.

Johnny Liston had been swimming with one arm only thrust through the life-buoy, as he had been obliged to quit his hold of it each time he dived beneath the crest of a wave.

He now took it off, holding on to the wheelhouse-top, which sank down into the water on one side under the double weight of the two lads, elevating the other end in the air.

"Here, put this on, Dave," he said. "I brought it for you, and a precious job I have had to reach you with it."

"But you, Jonathan--I beg your pardon, old chap, I didn't mean to call you so. I know you don't like it."

"Never mind, Dave. If you think of me as Jonathan you may as well call me so. I shan't mind you doing so any longer I rather like it, old fellow, now, for our friendship will be like that of David and Jonathan that we read of in the Bible; you know it says that 'the soul of Jonathan was knit unto the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.' That's just how I feel."

"What a chap you are to think of that now," said David admiringly, "with both of us bobbing about in the middle of the ocean, and the ship out of sight. But I won't have the life-buoy; what will you do without it?"

"Bless you, I can swim like a fish, Dave, and it was more a nuisance to me than a help; but, we can both hold on to it, you know, if it comes to the worst. How's your leg, Dave? I thought it was broken when you got it twisted in the wheel that time."

"Oh, it's all right," said David, kicking it out vigorously as he spoke.

"The bone isn't quite broken, but it's very sore, and I suppose I'd have to lay up for it if I wasn't here;" and he grinned ruefully.

"Do you think the ship will pick us up?" said the other presently, losing some of his self-possession now that he had come up with David, and the motive for forgetting self and personal danger was wanting.

He was naturally timid unless nerved up by necessity.

"Oh, yes," said David, whose spirits rose with the occasion, and who in the presence of his friend forgot all the peril. "Captain Markham won't desert us, never fear; but you can't pull up a ship like a horse, you know, Jonathan, and it will take some time for the _Sea Rover_ to tack about before she can fetch us. I wish, however, old chap, we had a little better raft than this to support us; the wheelhouse-top is hardly big enough for two, even with the buoy, which, though it can keep us afloat, won't raise us out of the water as we want."

"Why, I pa.s.sed some wreckage a few yards off before I reached you," said his friend.

"Did you?" said David. "That must have been the gangway and part of the bulwarks that came away with me. I wish we had the lot here."

"Do you?" said Jonathan, as we must now call him, "then I'll soon fetch them," striking out as he spoke.

"Take care," said David; "and pray take the buoy with you."

But, the sea saved Jonathan the trouble of leaving his friend, for the very pieces of timber of which he had spoken made their appearance at that moment, floating down towards them from the summit of a wave, in whose valley they were; and Jonathan swam beyond them and pushed them before him till they were alongside the wheelhouse-top.

There was plenty of material to form a substantial raft with the addition of what they already had; and as Jonathan drew up the heavy ma.s.s alongside, David gave a shout of joy.

"Why," he exclaimed, "here is the cleat of the signal halliards come away with a piece of the taffrail, and we'll have enough rope to form all the lashings we want. Isn't that lucky?"

The young middy was handy enough in sailors' ways through his two years'

experience of the sea; and--Jonathan aiding him under his direction--in a short time the loose timbers were lashed firmly together as a framework, with the roof of the wheelhouse fastened on the top, forming altogether a substantial platform, on which the two boys found themselves elevated a clear foot or more out of the water, and free from the cold wash of the waves, which was beginning to turn them blue.

"There," exclaimed David, "now we're comfortable, and can wait in patience till the ship overhauls us; she can't be long now."

Watching with eager eyes they saw the _Sea Rover_ coming towards them, after a long, long while, as it seemed to them; but ere she had reached them, in spite of their shouts and hand-wavings, which they fancied must have been seen and heard on board, she went round on the other tack, and disappeared from their view, to their bitter disappointment and grief.

It was David now who was hopeful still. Jonathan seemed to have lost all that courage which had inspired him to leap into the sea to his friend's rescue, and was trembling with fear and hopeless despair.

The next time the _Sea Rover_ came in sight, she was further off, and appeared to be sailing away from them, although they could see her tack about in the distance several times, as if searching for them still.

Then it gradually got darker, and night came on, enveloping them in a curtain of hazy mist that seemed to rest on the water, through which they could see far off the blue lights that were burnt on board the ship to show their whereabouts, although they were useless to them, as they could not reach her.

Even David began to lose hope now, but he still encouraged his companion.

"They'll not desert us, old fellow," he said, with a heartiness which he by no means felt. "The captain will lie-to, and will pick us up in the morning."

Jonathan was not attending to his words, however. He was shivering and shaking as if he had the ague, and David could hear his teeth chatter together with the cold, although the wind had gone down somewhat, and the sea no longer broke over them.

It was so dark that the two lads could scarcely see each other as they lay on top of the frail structure that separated them from the deep, clasping each other's hands.

Presently, in the fitful phosph.o.r.escent light of the water, some dark object seemed to float up alongside; and Jonathan gave vent to a scream of horror, that rang through the silence of the night.

"Oh, what is that?" he exclaimed.

And if David had not clutched him, he would have plunged headlong from the raft into the sea in his fright and agonised terror.

STORY THREE, CHAPTER FOUR.

ALONE ON THE OCEAN.

For hours the two boys remained in a sort of nameless terror, David feeling almost as frightened as Jonathan, although he concealed his fright in order to rea.s.sure his companion, with the terrible object that had excited their fear bobbing up and down alongside them, and occasionally coming with a crash against their frail raft, that threatened to annihilate it and send them both into the water, when it would be all over with them.

The night was pitch dark, for the mist that hung over the surface of the deep appeared to increase in intensity, and they could not see even the faint glimmer of a star to cheer them; while all they could hear was the lapping of the waves as they washed by them, and the ripple and swish of some billow as it overtopped its crest, and spent its strength in eddies of circling foam, as David could imagine--for the darkness rendered everything invisible now, even the platform on which they were supported, and the unknown companion beside them, which might be anything, and their very hands when held before their faces.

Some time after midnight, when David and Jonathan had gone through a purgatory of dread, not knowing what might happen to them any moment, the moon rose gradually from the horizon, shining faintly through a veil of clouds that almost obscured its light, and the morbid terror of the two boys was at once dispelled on their being able to perceive what it really was that had occasioned them such alarm.

"Goodness gracious me, Jonathan!" exclaimed David, with a tone of glad surprise in his voice, which at once aroused his friend, who was lying face downwards on the raft, with his head buried in his crossed arms.

"Why, what do you think it is that has frightened us so? I'm blest if it isn't that very identical boat that you saw in the afternoon pa.s.sing by the _Sea Rover_! Isn't it providential, old chap, that after all these hours we should come across it again? Thank G.o.d for it, Jonathan," he added more earnestly a moment afterwards; "it may save both our lives in case the ship is unable to find us and pick us up!"

Yes, there it was, a long black boat, the cutter of some vessel, that had been washed away from the bows, as it was twenty feet long and more, floating keel uppermost, alongside the raft, although buried somewhat deep in the water.