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Far off the starboard bow floated a thin line of smoke from a tug's funnel, the first sign to the crew since the hurricane that the world was not swept clean of ships. Two hours later the tug was standing by, her captain hailing the San Gardo through a megaphone. "Run in to New Orleans!" he shouted. "I cleared for Galveston, and I'm going there," the San Gardo's captain called back.
As I swam toward the submarine with the girl, Nobs' persistent barking attracted the attention of some of the tug's crew, so that as soon as we reached the side there were hands to help us aboard. I asked the girl if she was hurt, but she assured me that she was none the worse for this second wetting; nor did she seem to suffer any from shock.
Told me to find out first how much wood I should require and he would see," he remarked; and after he had spat peacefully in the dusk we heard over the water the beat of the tug's floats.
"He's broken his rope; the coal's adrift!" he cried. Dick saw the tug's lights vanish, which meant that she had turned with her stern towards the launch; and then two or three twinkling specks some distance off. "He'd tow the first craft with a double rope, a bridle from his quarters," he said.
He had just time to make up his mind to take this joke out of the hides of some of his tormentors, if it took him all winter, when he heard above him the sound of a short, sharp scuffle with History, who was pleading for dear life, and who came flying over the ledge with a shrill scream of terror, and plumped on the ground half an inch from Tug's head.
The tug's lines were being cast off, and I was interested in watching the manoeuvre until she had backed clear of the ship, at which moment, from for'ard, arose a queer babel of howling and yelping, as numbers of drunken voices cried out that a man was overboard. The second mate sprang down the poop-ladder and darted past me along the deck.
When it was within reach Captain Barney leaned out, made one end of the line fast to the tug's rudder post and then, paying out about twenty feet, he fastened the other end to the bitts in the bow of the rowboat. It seemed an hour's waiting before the Quinn's crew cast off the lines, but in reality it was not more than ten minutes.
Nearer and nearer butted the tug. "Stand by!" they heard the call from the forward end of her. Looking up, they could see the shadow against the pilot-house light. "By!" came the echo, and the man astern stepped on to her open quarter and balanced himself to heave. A note in that answering voice caught Bowen's ear. "Say, Nelson, that's not one of the tug's regular crew!" "I don't know.
A huge, sharp fin ripping the silver before the tug's bows told of a tarpon strayed far inland with the tide. An otter's head, round and hard, jutted up, looked round, dove again. In the magic light and shading, the tubby lines of the little tug were softened and altered; its paint-cracked deck and wheelhouse silvered and mellowed.
The varicolored lights were still bright in the sky when the answering signal rose from the bay. "The tug's moving up," said Perky. A thousand and one things flitted through Archie's mind. The Governor had not opened his eyes; his breath came in gasps, at long, painful intervals.
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