Sure enough, not twenty yards from the Electric Monarch as she lay on the waves, was the form of the swimmer.
“Stick it out! We’ll get you!” shouted Tom, from his post astern.
The swimmer waved a confident hand in reply. He did not appear at all incommoded by his accident. On the contrary, he was swimming leisurely as if he rather enjoyed his bath than otherwise. The boys gazed at him in astonishment. Within the next few minutes they were destined to be yet more surprised.
The surprise in store for them was this. The swimmer was an old friend of theirs.
“Captain Sprowl!” shouted Jack, as they neared him.
“Aye! aye! my hearty!” came back the response, in the old New Englander’s hearty voice, “lay alongside and I’ll come aboard.”
“Do we? I should say so. He was in command of Professor Dinkelspeil’s yacht when the mutineers sunk her. After that he was with us all through that Amazon country I told you about.”
But it was no time to enter into explanations. The Electric Monarch was skillfully maneuvered alongside the doughty old mariner before the boats from the steamer had fairly left the vessel’s side. Tom, who had also recognized Captain Sprowl, ran forward from his post in the stern and threw him a line. Five minutes later they were all standing in the pilot-house listening to the captain’s story of how he had come to loosen his hold of the jack-staff and plunge into the sea.
“You see, my hearties,” he said, “I was sure it was you in this here sky-hooting, sea-scooting contraption and so I says to myself, ‘I’ll give ’em a proper salute, I will, ship-shape, man-o-war fashion.’”
“Well, you certainly did, Captain,” laughed Jack, “but what in the world were you doing on that ship?”
“I am on my way to Portstown, Maine,” he said. “There’s a big fair there next week and one of the features of it is to be an aerial carnival. I’m to be in charge of the airship part of it and I’ve booked some of the best aviators in the country.”
The boys looked interested. Anything to do with airships always appealed to them.
“It’s just come to me,” resumed the captain, “that maybe you’d like to bring this contraption up thar’ and try for some of the prizes. What do you say?”
It was characteristic of Captain Sprowl that, regardless of his wet clothes and recent narrow escape, he made no more of it than if everything was all right and he had come on board the Electric Monarch in quite the ordinary course of events.