“Who wants any dinner, when a fellow feels as if he was going to be turned inside out!” So far none of the boys had suffered from seasickness, but now poor Sam was catching it, and the youngest Rover felt thoroughly miserable.

“Never mind, the storm won’t last forever,” said Dick sympathetically.  “Perhaps you had better lie down, Sam.”

“How can I, with the ship tossing like a cork?  I’ve got to hold on, same as the rest, and be glad, I suppose, that I am alive,” and poor Sam looked utterly miserable.

It was very close in the cabin, but neither door nor port-hole could be opened for fear of the water coming in.  Dinner was a farce, to use Tom’s way of expressing it, for everything was cold and had to be eaten out of hand or from a tin cup.  Yet what was served tasted very good to those who were hungry.

“I believe we’ll go to the bottom before we are done,” began Sam, when a loud shout from the deck reached the ears of all of the Rovers and made Tom and Dick leap to their feet.

“What’s that?” cried Dick.  “They are calling to somebody!”

Above the wind they could hear a yell from a distance, and then came more cries from the deck, followed by a bump on the side of the steamer.

“We’ve struck something!” ejaculated Tom.

“But I guess it wasn’t hard enough to do much damage.”

“That remains to be seen,” answered Dick.  “Storm or no storm, I’m gong on deck to learn what it means,” and he hurried up the companionway.

CHAPTER XIII

A RESCUE IN MID-OCEAN

Dick found that he could remain on the deck only with the greatest of difficulty.  Several life lines had been stretched around and he clung to one of these.

“What has happened?” he asked of one of the sailors.  “What did we strike?”

“Struck a small boat,” was the answer.  “It had a colored man in it.  We’ve just hauled the fellow on deck.”

“Is he all right?”

“No; he’s about half dead.  But the captain thinks he may get over it, with care,” and the sailor hurried away.

Dick now saw several men approaching, carrying the form of the rescued one between them.  He looked at the unconscious man and gave a cry of amazement.

“Alexander Pop!  What a strange happening!”

“Do you know the man?” questioned Captain Cambion.

“I know him very well,” answered Dick.  “He used to work at the military academy where my brothers and I were cadets.”  And the boy told Captain Cambion the particulars of Alexander Pop’s disappearance from Putnam Hall.  “I am glad that I will be able to tell him that his innocence is established,” he concluded.

“All providing we are able to bring him around to himself, Master Rover,” returned the captain gravely.

“You think, then, that he is in bad shape?”

“I hardly know what to think.  We will take him below and do all we can for him.”