“Hullo!” he shouted.  “Help!” A few seconds later the light of a lantern was flashed down upon him.  Then a figure crawled out on the spar projecting above his head, seized him by the collar, and lifted him from the bobstay to which he was clinging on to the bowsprit.  A minute later he was standing on the deck.

“Thank you!” he exclaimed.  “Have you seen anything of the man who was with me?  There were two of us on board.  If not, please look for him at once.”

“I am afraid it’s no use,” one of the men said, with a strong foreign accent; “he has gone down and will never come up again.  You come along with me to the captain.”

An uneasy feeling seized Ralph as he listened.  He could see nothing, for the lantern had been placed in a bucket the moment that he touched the deck.  At this moment a hail came from the stern of the vessel, and Ralph’s fears were at once realized, for it was in French.  The reply was in the same tongue, and he was led aft.  “Take him down below, Jacques, and let’s see what he is like.  We have suffered no damage, I hope?”

“Not as far as I could see by the light of the lantern, but the carpenter has gone below to see if she is making water.”

The captain led the way down into the cabin.  This was comfortably furnished and lighted by a swinging lamp.  “Do you come, down Jacques, I shall want you to interpret.”

The captain was surprised when he saw by the light of the lamp that the person they had rescued was a lad, well dressed, and evidently above the condition of fishermen.

“Now, young sir, who are you,” he asked, “and what have you to say for yourself?” The question was translated by Jacques.

“I like that,” the lad said indignantly.  “What have I to say for myself!  I think it’s what have you to say for yourselves?  We were quietly fishing when you ran over us and sank the boat and drowned my friend Joe, and haven’t even stopped for a moment to see if you could pick him up.  I call it shameful and inhuman!”

The French captain laughed as Jacques translated the speech, the purport of which he had, indeed, made out for himself, for although he did not speak English he understood it to some extent.

“Tell him it was his fault as much as ours.  We did not see him till we struck him.  And as for his companion, what chance was there of finding him on such a dark night as this?  Why, by the time we had hove round and got back again we might not have hit it within a quarter of a mile.  Besides, if he had been alive he would have shouted.”

Ralph saw, when he understood what the captain said, that there was truth in his words, and that the chances of discovering Joe would indeed have been slight even had the vessel headed round.

“May I ask,” he said, “what ship this is, and what you are going to do with me?”

“The ship is La Belle Marie of Dunkirk; as to what we are going to do with you it is not so easy to say.  Of course you can jump overboard again if you like, but if not you can stay on board until we have an opportunity of putting you ashore somewhere.  How did you come to be on board a fishing smack?  For I suppose it was a smack that we run down.”