Duncan looked round the deck.

"Where's Willie and the crew?"

"Overboard," said Weeks. "All except Rail! He's below deck forward and
clean daft. Listen and you'll hear 'im. He's singing hymns for those
in peril on the sea."

Duncan stared in disbelief. The skipper's face drove the disbelief out
of him.

"Why didn't you wake me?" he asked.

"What's the use? You want all the sleep you can get, because you an'
me have got to sail my smack into Yarmouth. But I was minded to call
you, lad," he said, with a sort of cry leaping from his throat. "The
wave struck us at about twelve, and it's been mighty lonesome on deck
since with Willie callin' out of the sea. All night he's been callin'
out of the welter of the sea. Funny that I haven't heard Upton or
Deakin, but on'y Willie! All night until daybreak he called, first on
one side of the smack and then on t'other, I don't think I'll tell his
mother that. An' I don't see how I'm to put you on shore in Denmark,
after all."

What had happened Duncan put together from the curt utterances of
Captain Weeks and the crazy lamentations of Rail. Weeks had roused all
hands except Duncan to take the last reef in. They were forward by the
mainmast at the time the wave struck them. Weeks himself was on the
boom, threading the reefing-rope through the eye of the sail. He
shouted "Water!" and the water came on board, carrying the three men