If ever they should succeed in their wild schemes the day of the battleship’s magnificent security would be over and instead the utmost caution would be necessary in approaching strange objects. But that was all nonsense, of course, and Hornblower shrugged it away from him carelessly; the ridiculous train of thought had occupied his mind during all the minutes necessary to raise the strange object to within sight of the deck.

“It’s a raft, sure enough, sir,” said Lieutenant Bush, glass to eye, and gazing across the sunlit water. “There’s one man waving, and I think there’s another one there, too.”

“Heave to when you get to wind’ard of her,” ordered Hornblower.

Bush took the Sutherland up close to the strange object, and hove to neatly.

“Queer sort of raft,” he said, peering over the dancing water as the Sutherland’s leeway carried her down to it.

It was nothing more than a couple of logs bound crudely together; the waves broke over it so that the two men on it were to some extent always submerged. One man was kneeling, holding a crude paddle in his hand, while the other lay with occasionally even his head buried under the water which washed over his body.

“Heave ‘em a line,” said Hornblower.

But even the man who was kneeling was too weak for the deftlycast rope to be of use to him. He fumbled with it and lost his grip, his head falling forward with exhaustion. The quarterboat had finally to be hoisted out and the two men brought on board in a bos’un’s chair swung from the mainyard arm. They lay there brown and naked, like the Indians of San Salvador, and most desperately emaciated; every bone was standing out clear and well defined, as though straining against the leathery skin stretched over it. Their long lank hair and beards dripped water on the deck. One lay motionless, the other held out a feeble hand to them as they stared down at them; with a croaking voice he pointed down his throat.