Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/174

 mighty pull brought him out of the sea, and sent him with a squash on the boards of the raft, where he lay gripping the ropes with his hands as with a vice.

Before his rescuers could turn to aid Sam, he stood panting beside them.

"Thank God," said Sam, "for this deliverance!"

"Amen!" was the earnest and prompt response from the others.

Yet it seemed but a temporary deliverance, for when these castaways looked around them, they saw nothing but a heaving ocean and a darkening sky, with the tiny raft as the only visible solid speck in all the watery waste. Compared, however, with the extremity of danger through which they had just passed, the little platform on which they stood seemed to them an ample refuge—so greatly do circumstances alter our estimate of facts!

But they had not time to think much, as may be easily understood, for a great deal still remained to be done. Their little ark was by no means secure. We have said that only enough of nails had been driven into it to hold the planks to the framework, but not to withstand rough treatment. Indeed, during the plunge two of the planks had been torn off, but the binding rope held them to their places, as Sam had foreseen.

Very little daylight now remained, so that not a moment was to be lost.