Chapter XXI: “sail Ho!”

Cautiously Tom peered about him. He listened as only one can listen who is suffering from thirst, and who hears the welcome sound of water. True, there was still water in the keg, but that belonged to all, and Tom had had his share. Was there more on board?

“It seems to come from up forward,” murmured Tom, “up forward where Mr. Skeel is.” At once his old suspicions came back to him. He peered toward the bow, but the sail was in his way and he could not see well.

“I’m going to take a look,” he decided. There was scarcely any wind then, and the sea was calm. It would do no harm to leave the helm.

Carefully Tom made his way forward, walking softly past the slumbering sailors. And then the sight he saw filled him with rage.

For there, eating and drinking from a private store of food and water he had stolen, and hidden away, was the renegade professor. It was the trickle of water, as he poured it out from a can into a cup, that Tom had heard.

Hardly knowing what to do our hero paused. Should he spring on the traitor and take the stolen supply of food and drink away, or call the sailors? Yet it might be advisable to see where Mr. Skeel had hidden his unfairly gotten store. So Tom waited.

It was agony to see the man eating and drinking before his eyes--eating and drinking when Tom himself was parched and half starved. And yet so cunning was the former professor that he did not gorge himself. He was evidently saving some for another time.

At last, as Tom watched, the professor made an end of his midnight meal and began to hide away his supply. And it was in the forward watertight compartment that he placed his store of food and water. It was there, where no one had thought of looking, that he kept them. The compartment was one that could be opened and used as a locker and this use Mr. Skeel had made of it. He had evidently taken the food when no one was observing him, and had emptied one of the water kegs into an unused tin can, and thus supplied himself against the time of need, while the others were on short rations. And yet with all this, he had daily drawn as much as had the others.

“The trickster!” murmured Tom. “I’m going to expose him!”

Our hero stepped forward. As he emerged in front of the sail the professor saw him and started. He tried to hide the fact that he had been eating, but he did not have time to stow away all the food in the compartment.

“I’ll ask you to hand those things over to me,” said Tom coldly.

“What things?”

“The food and water you stole from us.”

“Food and water?”

“Yes! Don’t trifle with me!” and Tom’s voice was menacing. “If I call Abe and Joe it will go hard with you. They won’t stand for anything like this.”

“Oh, don’t tell them! Don’t tell!” begged the man, now a trembling coward. “I--I just couldn’t stand it to be hungry and thirsty.”

“How do you suppose _we_ stood it?” asked Tom calmly.

“I--I don’t know. But I--I couldn’t. I had to have more to eat. I have a big appetite.”

“You’ll have to take a reef in it,” went on the lad. “Now hand me over that food and water. We need it--we may need it worse before we’re rescued.”

“And you won’t tell on me.”

“Not this time. But if it occurs again----”

“What’s that? What’s the matter, Tom?” came the voice of the sailor Abe.

The professor started. Through the darkness he looked appealingly at the lad who confronted him.

“Quick!” whispered Tom. “The food and water!”

The professor passed them over.

“What’s up?” asked Joe.

“I’ve just found the missing provisions,” said Tom grimly. “They had gotten into the forward compartment.”

“The forward compartment?” queried Abe.

“Yes--by--er--mistake I fancy,” and Tom spoke dryly.

He took them from the trembling hands of the professor and walked aft with them.

“I think we can all indulge in a little lunch, and a drink,” he went on. “There is enough here for several more days now, and we won’t have to be on quite such short rations.”

“Thank heaven!” murmured Joe. “And yet I can’t see how the things got in the forward compartment.”

“Nor I,” murmured Abe, but though he thought a great deal he said nothing more on the subject.

Tom passed around some food and water, though the professor did not get any. Nor did he ask for it. Jackie did not awaken, sleeping with the healthy fatigue of childhood.

Then a little wind sprang up, and some one must look to the helm. Tom’s trick was nearly up, and Joe relieved him.

“Tell me, matie, did the professor have the grub?” the sailor whispered hoarsely.

“He did,” answered Tom, “but I think it’s best to say nothing about it. He’s had his lesson.”

“Yes, but he may do it again.”

“We’ll take precautions, now that we know what a traitor he is,” answered the lad.

Morning came--morning with the hot sun beaming down and the oily sea running after the boat containing the shipwrecked ones.

Mr. Skeel seemed to feel his position keenly, though he was such an unprincipled man at heart that it is doubtful if any lesson had a lasting effect on him.

“Well, I don’t see anything of a sail,” remarked Abe gloomily, as his eye roved over the waste of water. “And it’s been many a weary day we’ve looked for one.”

“And the islands,” murmured Joe. “I can’t understand why we haven’t sighted some, unless we are farther north than I had any idea of.”

“Well, we can last it out for another week--with care,” said Tom slowly.

“And we’ll be careful in two ways,” spoke Abe. “We’ll eat and drink as little as we can, and we’ll watch to see that none of our supplies disappear in the night.”

He looked meaningly at Mr. Skeel as he spoke, and the professor turned his head away.

But even the discovery of the hidden food supply could not better their condition for long. The water, warm and brackish as it was, went drop by drop, for it was so hot they had to wet their lips and tongues often. The food, too, while it stopped their hunger, made them the more thirsty. Jackie, too, seemed to develop a fever, and to need more water than usual.

On and on they sailed. They were in the middle of the second week, and saw no hope of rescue. They hoped for rain, that their water supply might be renewed, but the sky was brazen and hot by day and star-studded by night.

“I--I can’t stand it much longer,” murmured Abe, at the close of a hot afternoon. “I--I’ve got to do something. Look at all that water out there,” and he motioned toward the heaving ocean.

“Water! Yes, it’s water fair enough, matie,” spoke Joe soothingly, “but them as drinks it loses their minds. Bear up a little longer, and surely we’ll be picked up, or sight land.”

“I don’t believe so!” exclaimed Abe gloomily.

“Tom, I want my daddy!” whined Jackie. “Why don’t you get him for me?”

“I will--soon,” said Tom brokenly, as he tried to comfort the little chap.

They were down to their last bit of food, and the last keg of water. The latter they had used with the utmost economy, for they knew they could live longer without food than without water. And yet there was scarcely a pint left, and it was hardly fit to drink.

They were all very thin, and the skin on their faces seemed drawn and tight. Their tongues were thick, and dark, so they could hardly speak. Jackie had been better fed, and had had more water than the others, and yet even he was failing.

Abe and Joe, being more hardy, had, perhaps, suffered less, but their privations were telling on them. Mr. Skeel had lost much of his plumpness, and his clothes hung on him like the rags on a scarecrow in a cornfield.

As for Tom, he bore up bravely. Day by day he had tightened his belt that he might “make his hunger smaller,” as the Indians say. He had even given Jackie part of his food and water.

Night came, the long lonesome night, and yet it was welcome, for it took away the blazing sun. What would the morning bring?

They were all partly delirious that night. Tom found himself murmuring in his sleep, and he heard the others doing the same. Abe collapsed at the wheel, and Joe had to do a double trick. He would not let Tom relieve him.

Toward morning the last water was doled out. No one felt like eating.

“I--I guess this is the end,” murmured Joe. “We’ve made a good fight--but--this is--the--end.”

Tom said nothing. He sat in the bow, gloomily looking off across the waste of waters. He thought of many things.

It grew lighter. Another day of heat was coming--a day when there would be no water to relieve them. How many days more?

Higher crept the sun out of the waves. Tom rubbed his smarting eyes. He looked, and then he looked again. Then, scarcely believing what he saw, and fearing that it was but a vision of his disordered brain he shouted, over and over again:

“Sail ho! Sail ho!”