Chapter X: The Derelict

“Air!” thought Tom gaspingly, as he went down and down into the depths. “I must get air! My lungs! They’re bursting!”

He felt himself being buffeted by the waters. It seemed as though he was in a whirlpool of foam. He was being sucked down.

Even then he found himself thinking of many things besides the very evident necessity of saving himself. He was wondering what had struck the _Silver Star_. He wondered if the ship had gone down, or had gone to pieces. What had become of her passengers and crew?

And, with all that, and with the vital necessity of getting a breath of air soon, Tom found himself regretting that his mission to rescue his parents must now fail.

“But it shan’t!” he found himself exclaiming mentally. “I’ll get up and save myself, and them too!”

Tom had grit. It was the kind of grit that enabled him to win the football game, and to lead his class to revolt against unfair treatment.

Striking out with all his might our hero swam upward. He felt that he would never reach the top so that he might fill his lungs with air, and he blessed his lucky stars that he had put on light clothing, soft shoes and was not encumbered with anything.

For he felt that he was mounting upward. Upward through the blackness and dark waters to what?

That was something that even he dared not think about. Would he find himself on a waste of waters, or would there be some boat near to save him? Had the whole ship’s company perished? It seemed likely.

Then, as suddenly as he had gone into the water, he felt himself shooting up out of it. He shook his head, as a dog shakes his body on emerging from the waves, to free his eyes of water. Then he glanced about.

There was a glare on the storm-swept surface of the heaving sea, a glare that Tom knew came from the flaring rockets and signal lights. He whirled about in the water until he could face the source of the illumination, and he saw that which saddened and startled him.

About a hundred yards away, for that distance she had been swept by the storm, was all that was left of the _Silver Star_. She was low in the water--a wreck--and the light flared from one of her signal masts, where a sailor had fastened it.

And in the glare Tom saw something else. It was a lifeboat, filled with people, and it was headed away from him. He knew this was his one chance. Treading water, so as to bring his head as much above the waves as possible, he shouted:

“Help! Help! I’m Tom Fairfield! I’m right astern of you. Help! Help! I’m--”

His voice was drowned out in a smother of foam that broke over him from a huge wave, and he had to swim to keep himself up. The boat disappeared behind the crest of a comber, only to reappear again, the dying flare from the light showing the men rowing hard.

“Help! Help!” sang out Tom again, but at the same moment he realized that in the roar of the wind and the swish of the waves his cry could scarcely be heard. Still he called again:

“Help! Help!”

Once more he was covered by a smother of foam, and again he had to swim with all his strength. When he could see the lifeboat again it was farther off, and then Tom did what he should have tried at first--he endeavored to swim after it.

“For they’re rowing to get beyond the suction of the ship when it goes down,” he reflected, “and when they’re far enough away they’ll wait to pick up survivors.”

He struck out valiantly, his courage coming back to him now. It was not cold, and save for the violence of the wind and waves, Tom would not have been in bad straits, for he was a good swimmer. But he realized the peril of his situation--adrift on the open ocean.

He had swum perhaps fifty feet, getting occasional glimpses of the lifeboat as it rose on the crest of a wave, when the flare on the vessel seemed to be dying down.

Tom swung around and saw a weird and terrifying sight. As he looked the _Silver Star_ seemed to stand up on end, like some stricken animal making a last stand. Then with a suddenness that was startling, the craft sank from sight, a loud boom proclaiming when the decks blew up from the compressed air under them.

Instantly the sea was in blackness again, and Tom felt his heart sinking, as he realized that he could no longer see the lifeboat, upon which his sole hope could be placed.

“But I’m not going to give up. I’ll yell some more,” he thought, and he called with all the power of his lungs.

“Help! Help! I’m Tom Fairfield! Right astern of you!”

He listened, but all he could hear was the roar of the wind and the swish of the waves. And then he knew it was hopeless to look for aid from that direction.

“I’ll keep afloat as long as possible,” he thought “and then--well--” He did not like to think further. “In the morning though,” he reflected, “Ah, in the morning I may be able to pick up enough floating wreckage to make a raft, or the boat may see me. There must be more than one boat. They had time to launch more than one when I started to make my roll into the ocean.”

This thought gave him courage, and he struck out with a better heart, determining not to give up as long as he could keep afloat.

“I wonder if there are sharks here,” thought the shipwrecked lad. “Sharks! Ugh! And other big fish!”

He felt a shiver run through him in spite of the warmth of those southern waters, and the very warmth, and the thought of how far south he had come, made him think all the more about some fierce man-eating tiger of the sea.

“Oh, pshaw! What’s the use of being a chump!” said Tom aloud, when he got a chance to free his mouth of salt water. “I just won’t think of anything like that. Of course there aren’t any sharks here. I’ll just think that I’m trying to win the swimming race at Elmwood Hall for my Freshman class.”

The very idea, thus simply expressed, made him feel better, and he struck out with better heart. Once more he went over in his mind the events that had preceded the sinking of the _Silver Star_ and the necessity for her passengers and crew to put to sea in small boats. He found himself wondering what she could have hit, or been rammed by, to tear a hole in her.

“And my pictures of the waterspout!” reflected Tom grimly. “They’re at the bottom of the ocean by this time I suppose. And poor dad and mother--But there, I’m not going to worry. I’ve got to swim, and I guess I’ll get all I want of it, even though I am fond of water.”

All around him was blackness, save a slight phosphorescence of the ocean, and when he came up on the crest of a wave he looked about for a possible sight of a boat. But he saw nothing. He shouted occasionally, but he realized that he was only wasting his breath. On he swam, grimly and determinedly.

The storm seemed to be no worse, and Tom even found himself thinking that it was abating, after it had done all the damage possible.

There came a big wave over him, almost depriving him of breath, and sending him rolling and tumbling down into the depths again. When he came up, and had filled his lungs with air, he was almost exhausted.

When he struck out his right hand hit something in the water. Instinctively he shrank away with a start of fear that he had come in contact with some monstrous fish. Then a flash of lightning--the first since the beginning of the storm--revealed to him a large cork ring, or life preserver.

He could barely repress a shout of joy--only the thought that his mouth might become filled with salt water deterred him, for he knew what that ring meant to him.

“I can get that over my head and float,” he reasoned. He reached for it. The swell carried it away from him for a moment, and then he got hold of it. In a moment he had it under his armpits and he was riding easily on the surface of the sea, for the ring was a specially large one, and raised him well up.

He was floating on the surface of the sea, I have said, and yet it was not like the comparatively smooth surface of a river or lake. For, so large were the waves still, in spite of the fact that the storm was a little less severe, that Tom was down in a deep valley one moment, and on a wave-crest the next.

“Perhaps I can see the boat, now that there’s lightning,” he reasoned, and, each time he came up he looked about. But he could see no sign of the life-craft, nor were his shouts answered.

He swam on again, rather hampered as to speed because of the ring, but he did not mind this. His chief aim was to keep alive and afloat until morning so that he might look for help, or be located by those in the boats, if they were still on top of the sea. So Tom floated idly on, occasionally swimming when he felt a bit numbed by the cold, which he was conscious of, now that he had been in the water so long.

The lightning increased in frequency and intensity, and there were mutterings of thunder.

“In for another storm, and a different kind,” mused Tom. “I hope it clears up after that, so I have some chance.”

The flashes became more brilliant, as the storm came nearer. Tom took advantage of every one of them to look for a boat, or for a piece of wreckage to which he might cling. But he saw nothing. Then the rain, which had ceased for a time, burst with greater fury. It fairly seemed to beat down the crests of the waves, and Tom was glad of that.

“And I can get a drink, too,” he reflected, for he had swallowed some salt water, and his throat was parched. He held open his mouth and the grateful drops dashed in. The amount he was able to catch was rather disappointing, but it was better than nothing.

And then, as the fury of the storm grew, and the lightning became even more intense, Tom saw something that made his heart beat high with hope.

It was a shape of something lying low in the water, and moving sluggishly on the swell. Our hero had only a glimpse of it at almost the tail-end of the lightning flash, and he waited for another illumination before deciding what the object was.

Then the whole heavens seemed lighted up by a great flash and our hero saw the object again.

“A boat!” he cried. “And some one in it.”

He whirled about in the water, headed for the object, and struck out.

“Help! Help!” he cried again. “Wait for me.”

Back came the answer over the waste of waters.

“We can’t do anything but wait. Swim over here. Go by the lightning.”

Once more Tom saw what he thought was the boat, by the glare of a flash. Then its peculiar shape impressed him.

“It’s an upset boat!” he gasped. “They’ve been thrown out and are clinging to the bottom. But it’s a big one, though. Much bigger than any of the lifeboats. I wonder what it can be?”

On he swam toward the craft.

“Are you there?” came a hail.

“Yes, I’m coming,” Tom answered.

A huge wave seemed to sweep him onward. He saw that he was close to the wrecked boat. A few more strokes, and a hand was reached out to him. He grasped it desperately.

“Come aboard, mate!” a hearty voice sang out. “We haven’t much, but you’re welcome to it. Come aboard!”

Tom found himself scrambling up the side of some craft. In the next flash he saw the forms and indistinct faces of two men. One of them held something in his arms.

“What are you on?” gasped Tom.

“A partly submerged derelict,” was the answer. “It’s the one the _Silver Star_ struck, I reckon, and the thing that ripped a hole in her and sunk her. It’s a big derelict, my lad,” the sailor went on, “and when we were tossed overboard we landed close to it, same as this other little chap did.”

“What other little chap?” asked Tom, as he sank down exhausted on the deck of the derelict.

He had his answer a moment later.

“Oh, Tom. Tom Fairfield!” a childish voice cried. “I want you and I want my daddy!”