“Pull away,” he commanded sorrowfully, and the sailors rowed out from the foundered ship.

When they were a little way off they rested on their oars.  All around them was a waste of heaving waters.  The two other boats came up, and the occupants looked at the Eagle settling lower and lower as the water filled her.  The wrecked ship, now sunk almost to her deck level, seemed, save for the three boats, to be the only object in sight on the bosom of the tumultuous ocean.

“Well, men, give way!” at length called the captain, with a sigh.  “We may be sighted by some vessel, or we may land on an island.  There are several islands hereabouts, if we are not too far away from them.”

Then, bending to the oars, the sailors sent the boats away from the wreck.  Bob and his friends were afloat on the big ocean in small boats that, at any moment, might be swamped by a mighty wave, for the wind was still blowing hard, though the sun shone brightly in the eastern sky.

CHAPTER XVIII

BOB ON AN ISLAND

“Keep together, men!” called the captain, as they pulled away.  “We don’t want to lose one another.”

“Which way shall we pull, sir?” asked the first mate.

“I’ll tell you presently.  I’ll look at my charts and see if I can’t locate an island somewhere here-abouts.  Keep up your courage.  Luckily this didn’t happen down in the Straits.  At least we have warm weather here.”

For the first time Bob noticed that it was very warm.  It had been so, of course, for several days preceding the wreck, but the thought that they were in a tropical climate had been forgotten in the excitement of the foundering of the ship.  Now it was a thing for which to be thankful.

“Oh!  Isn’t this the most terrible thing that could occur!” exclaimed Mr. Tarbill, from a seat where he was huddled up.  “It is awful!”

“It’s not half so awful as if we were drowned and in Davy Jones’s locker,” remarked the captain.  “I’ve lost my ship and the cargo, but, fortunately, both were insured.  We are lucky to have had time to get off in the boats, well provisioned as they are.  As soon as this wind goes down a bit we’ll hoist the small sails and head for the nearest land.”

The captain was soon busy over his charts.  He made some calculations and announced his belief that there was a group of islands about a hundred miles off.  He could not be sure, for while they showed on the chart, he could not exactly determine the position of the ship when she struck, as no observation had been taken since the previous noon, and the rate of sailing under the force of the gale was mere guesswork.

So the men rowed on.  The Eagle was now a mere blot on the surface of the ocean—­a speck of blackness amid a swirl of foam, caused by the waves breaking over the ship and the reef.  The wind continued too high to risk raising the sail with which each boat was provided, and it was slow progress with the oars.