“Launch the dingy and get aboard; leave the oars to me!”

In an instant the little dingy had been slid overboard and the boys were sitting in the stern; then Captain Tom stepped aboard and was soon pulling mightily away from the Ella and across the line of progress of the waterspout.  But it was all too late.  The dingy was less than two hundred feet from the Etta when she began to toss, lifting her bow high and then plunging it deep beneath the surface.  The first touch of the waterspout carried away mast and sails and swept clear the deck.  In another instant the schooner was engulfed, but her bulk broke the back of the waterspout and it began to sway; its straight, smooth column began to kink up and break, and many hundred tons of water fell crashing into the Gulf.  When the great column fell the dingy was within three hundred feet and, as Captain Tom threw his weight on the oars in a last effort to increase the distance, one of the oars snapped and the captain fell on his back in the bow of the boat, striking his head on the gunwale with a force that stunned him.  At this moment the outflowing wave from the falling water swept over the skiff, rolling it upside down.  Dick, who was a regular water-dog, saw the big wave coming and, as it rolled the dingy over, he sank for a moment beneath the surface till the wave had passed, then came up with all his senses alert.  He swam to the capsized dingy, which was near him, and was soon joined by Johnny.

“Where’s the captain?” shouted Dick.  “We’ve got to find him.  Look everywhere, Johnny.”

The broken water was now tossing madly and it seemed an age to Dick before he caught a glimpse of the captain’s head on the crest of a wave two boat’s lengths distant.  He swam to the place, and searched the water above and below, diving until he was exhausted.  He was losing hope when once more the captain’s body came to the surface and Dick seized it.  He started for the dingy with his burden, but was fearing he would never make it, when he found Johnny beside him, saying: 

“Here, you’re played out.  Put your hand on my shoulder.  I can take care of the cap’n, too.”

“All right, you take care of the captain.  I can get back to the dingy.”

When they reached the dingy the water had become so much smoother that they were able to rest while clinging to the side of the dingy and holding the captain’s face out of water.

“Don’t ’spose Cap’n’s dead, do yer?” said Johnny.

“Don’t think so, but we’ve got to get this dingy bailed out and get him in it, mighty soon.  Then I know what to do to bring him to, if there’s life in him.  Lend me your cap and I’ll bail out the dingy.”

“That ain’t the way we bail boats down here,” said Johnny, who got into the dingy and began to rock it.  In about a minute he had rocked it nearly dry and finished the job with his cap.  Dick then climbed into the dingy and the boys pulled the body of the captain beside it and, bearing down on the gunwale until water began to come in, dragged it aboard, half filling the dingy as they did it.  As Johnny began to bail again a feeble voice beside him whispered: