Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/163

 Our hero, while modestly standing behind his comrades, had suddenly remembered that the small bible given him by his mother was lying on the shelf at the side of his berth. He would have lost anything rather than that. There was yet time to fetch it, so, without a word, he turned and sprang below, supposing that he had ample time.

"Robin! Robin!" shouted Sam and Slagg together, at the top of their voices.

"Coming! coming!" reached them faintly from below, but Robin did not come. The hasty summons induced him to leap over a chest in returning. He struck his head violently against a beam, and fell back stunned.

With another wild shout his friends rushed down the companion hatch to hasten his movements by force. They found him almost insensible. Lifting him quickly, they carried him on deck, and bore him to the stern of the vessel.

"Robin! Robin!" cried Sam, in an agony of impatience—for the raft was by that time far astern, besides which the shades of evening were beginning to descend—"do try to rally. We must swim. We 're almost too late. Can you do it?"

"Yes, yes, I can swim like a duck," cried Robin, rising and staggering towards the bulwarks.

"But I can't swim at all!" cried Stumps in a voice of horror.