The Crew of the Water Wagtail | Page 5

back to the ship if need be, but I will trust only you to pay out and read my signals. Observe, now, let there be no slack to the line; keep it just taut but without any pull on it, so that you may feel the signals at once. One pull means pay out faster, two pulls mean haul me aboard, three pulls is all right and fix the big hawser to the line so that I may haul it ashore. Now, Olly, I trust to you to read my signals and act promptly."
Oliver's heart was too full to speak. He looked at his friend with swimming eyes and nodded his head.
"Men," said Paul to the crew, "let me beg you to obey the boy's orders smartly. If God wills it so, we shall all be saved."
He leaped over the side as he concluded. Another moment and he was seen to rise and buffet the plunging waters manfully. Great as was the muscular strength of the young man, it seemed absolute feebleness to those who looked on; nevertheless he made headway towards the shore, which was strewn with great boulders with a low cliff behind them. It was among these boulders that his chief danger and difficulty lay, for his strong frame would have been as nothing if dashed against them.
Quickly he was lost to view in the hurly-burly of foam and spray.
With the utmost care did Oliver Trench perform his duty. It required both vigour of hand and delicacy of touch to keep the line right, but it was manipulated by hands whose vigour and touch were intensified by love.
"Ease off!" he cried, looking back impatiently at the strong fellows who held the slack of the line.
The men obeyed so readily that the line ran out too fast and the boy had much ado to check it. Just as he got it sufficiently taut, he felt what seemed to him like two pulls--"haul me in!" Could it be? He was not certain. In an agony of anxiety he held on, and was about to give the signal to haul in, when his father, who watched his every movement, instantly said, "Give him another second or two, Olly."
Just then there was a strong single pull at the line.
"Pay out!--faster!" shouted Oliver, and, at the same moment he eased off his own feelings in a tremendous sigh of relief.
After that the line ran steadily for a few seconds, and no signals came. Then it ceased to run, and poor Oliver's fears began to rush in upon him again, but he was speedily relieved by feeling three distinct and vigorous pulls.
"Thank God, he's safe," cried the boy. "Now then, pass along the hawser--quick!"
This was done, the light line was attached to a three-inch rope, and the party on the wreck waited anxiously.
"Give it a pull, Olly, by way of signal," suggested Master Trench.
"He did not tell me to do that, father," returned the boy, hesitating.
"No doubt he forgot it in the hurry--try it, anyhow."
A hearty pull on the line was accordingly given, and they soon had the satisfaction of seeing the hawser move over the side and run towards the shore. When it ceased to run out they knew that Paul must have got hold of the end of it, so, making their end fast to the heel of the bowsprit, they waited, for as yet the rope lay deep in the heaving waters, and quite useless as a means of escape.
Presently the rope began to jerk, then it tightened, soon the bight of it rose out of the sea and remained there--rigid.
"Well done, Paul," exclaimed the skipper, when this was accomplished. "Now, Olly, you go first, you're light."
But the boy hesitated. "No, father, you first," he said.
"Obey orders, Olly," returned the skipper sternly.
Without another word Oliver got upon the rope and proceeded to clamber along it. The operation was by no means easy, but the boy was strong and active, and the water not very cold. It leaped up and drenched him, however, as he passed the lowest point of the bight, and thereafter the weight of his wet garments delayed him, so that on nearing the shore he was pretty well exhausted. There, however, he found Paul up to the waist in the sea waiting for him, and the last few yards of the journey were traversed in his friend's arms.
By means of this rope was every man of the Water Wagtail's crew saved from a watery grave.
They found that the island on which they had been cast was sufficiently large to afford them shelter, and a brief survey of it proved that there was both wood and water enough to serve them, but nothing of animal or vegetable life was to be found. This was serious, because all their