A
feeling of gloom settled down over the castaways.
It must have been about the middle of the night that Bob, working
his way aft to get a drink of water from one of the casks, stumbled
over part of the sail that was folded in the bottom of the gig. He
put out his hands, instinctively, to save himself, but, as there
was nothing to cling to, he only grasped the air.
Then, with a cry of terror which he could not suppress, he plunged
overboard and was soon struggling in the water.
He went down, but, being a good swimmer, he at once began to strike
out, and as he got his head above the surface and shook the water
from his ears, he heard one of the sailors cry:
"Bob's overboard!"
"Bob! Bob! Where are you?" shouted the captain. "Here's a
life-preserver!"
The boy heard a splash in the water near him and struck out for it.
"Back water!" he heard the captain cry.
"Aye, aye, sir!" replied the sailors heartily.
At the same time the captain shouted to Mr. Carr's boat word of
what had happened. Bob was weighted down by his wet clothes and he
felt he could not long keep up, but he was swimming strongly,
hoping every moment one of the boats would pick him up.
"Here I am!" he shouted, but his voice did not carry far above the
wind. He began to have a hopeless feeling, as if he was doomed to
drown there all alone on the vast ocean. A nameless terror seized
him. Then, to his joy, his fingers touched something. It was the
floating cork life-preserver, and he knew he could keep himself up
with it for a long time.
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