CHAPTER XXIII.

MEETING AN OLD FRIEND.

Morning broke on a comparatively smooth sea, and two utterly exhausted, sunken-cheeked lads, weak from exposure and lack of nourishment.

"This thing has got to end one way or another before long," declared Bill, his voice coming in a sort of croak from his parched throat.

"Yes, I'm afraid we can't stick it out much longer, Bill," assented Jack languidly.

"I'm beginning to see things," muttered Bill; "black objects dancing about in the sun. Over there on the horizon, for instance, I can see a dark cloud that looks like a tower. I know it isn't there, of course, but----"

"But, Bill, by hookey, it is!" cried Jack.

"What, are you going crazy, too?"

"That's not a tower, but a steamer's smoke, Bill," declared Jack, after prolonged scrutiny. In a few minutes Bill became convinced that his chum was right.

"But will she pass near enough to see us?"

It was a question upon which much, indeed, their very existence, might depend.

On came the cloud of smoke, and now they could see the funnel and then the hull, of the steamer that was making it.

"Bill, I--I believe she'll pass near us."

Jack's voice trembled and his eyes shone as if he were a victim of fever. Bill did not answer, but he clutched the gunwale with hands that shook, and fixed his gaze on the oncoming vessel. Neither boy dared to speak, but both of them felt that if the steamer did not sight them, it would be more than they could bear.

They stood up in the boat when they thought the craft was near enough to see and waved frantically, at the risk of upsetting the cranky little affair.

"Bill, she's changing her course," came from Jack's parched and fevered lips.

"I believe she is. Yes, see there!"

Three white puffs of steam burst from the ship's whistle. Then came the booming sound of her siren thrice repeated. The sweetest music produced by the finest musicians of both hemispheres could not have sounded as good to the boys at that moment as did the harsh roar of the steam whistle that showed them they had been sighted and that rescue was at hand. From the steamer's stern flag-staff fluttered the Dutch ensign, proclaiming that she was a ship of a neutral power.

This was an additional cause of congratulation to the boys, for had they been picked up by a craft flying a belligerent flag, they might have become involved in fresh difficulties. In half an hour the steamer, a small freighter, was lying to not far off the drifting yawl, and a boat had been lowered and was rapidly pulled toward the castaways. In a short time they were on board, and after being refreshed and provided with clothes, were able to tell their stories to Captain Van der Hagueen, the stout, red-faced little captain to whom they owed their safety.

The _Zuyder Zee_, the name of the little steamer, was bound, to the boys' great joy, for Antwerp. She carried salt fish and herrings from Scotland and scented her entire vicinity with the aroma of her cargo. But the boys, as Bill expressed it, would have thought "a limburger cheese ship a paradise" after all they had gone through.

The next morning they steamed up the River Scheldt and came once more in sight of the towers and spires of the historic city which, it will be recalled, they had visited some time before on Jack's first voyage. Captain Van der Hagueen told them that after discharging his cargo he meant to lay up his ship, in which he was part owner, at Antwerp till the war was over. The risk of floating mines in the North Sea was too great to encounter, he declared.

It was in the earlier days of the war and Antwerp, a city strongly fortified, had not been threatened, although every preparation was being made to receive the enemy if they did come. Barricades were being thrown up in the streets and the suburbs, and the thoroughfares were full of the queerly uniformed Belgian soldiers the boys had been so much amused at on their previous visit. Their amusement at Belgian soldiers had given way, by now, however, to admiration and respect for the sturdy little country of fighters that had managed to give a good account of itself against the most formidable army ever assembled.

The boys decided to seek out their good friend M. La Farge, the Minister of Government Railroads, who, it will be recalled, they had served on their first visit, and whose appreciation in the form of two handsomely engraved and inscribed gold watches were at that moment in Jack's money belt, where he had luckily placed them for fear of robbery before they embarked on the _Barley Rig_. It was fortunate that he had done so, otherwise it is doubtful if they would have obtained access to his offices, where they found him overwhelmed with work. The sight of the watches, however, proved an "open sesame" to the Minister's presence, and the boys--who had in the meantime provided themselves with new outfits,--presently found themselves warmly shaking hands with their old friend who was unfeignedly glad to see them.