here!" sang out Captain Brisco angrily to the
steersman. At the same time there rang out a cry from Hen Lacomb.

"Man overboard! Man overboard!"

Alice, startled, leaped to her feet. Jack Jepson had disappeared!

CHAPTER XV

"SAIL HO!"

Alice DeVere was not an ordinary sort of girl. She may have been, once,
but that was before her advent in moving pictures. There had been times
when a sudden emergency would cause her to feel faint, if not actually
to succumb to that interesting ailment, which is so useful, especially
in stories and books.

But Alice, who was the nearest to the scene of what had just happened,
neither fainted, nor became unduly excited. She had seen too many
emergencies in the work of taking moving pictures to become "rattled,"
which is not used in a slangy sense at all, but merely to indicate that
one's nerves vibrate too rapidly. Consequently, after her first scream,
Alice was almost as calm and collected as could be expected of a veteran
sailor.

"Man overboard!" Alice cried, echoing the shout of Hen Lacomb, who, she
noticed, after his first hesitation, began lowering a boat, or trying
to, for it needed two at that task.

"I'll help!" cried Alice rushing to the aid of the strange man who
seemed so friendly with Captain Brisco.

"Oh--you----!" he exclaimed, with a swift look at her. Then he resumed
the work of loosing the ropes so they would run freely in the pulley
blocks of the davits.

Meanwhile Captain Brisco had bawled out an order to the helmsman to
bring the ship up in the wind. A sailor had tossed overboard a
life-ring, and then came to help Lacomb lower the boat, for Alice found
it beyond her strength, eager as she was.

"There he is!" cried Russ, as he rushed to the rail beside Alice. He
pointed to the water. Fortunately the sea was smooth, and rising and
falling on the waves could be seen the head of the old sailor.

"Oh! Oh!" gasped Ruth, who glided over to the side of Alice. "If--if a
shark should come now."

"There aren't any around here!" declared Russ. He did not know whether
there were or not, but he said that to make the girls feel more
comfortable. After all, if there were sharks, whatever he said would be
of no effect, and it was better to take the best view of it, he thought.

"Lower away!" cried Hen Lacomb, and the boat went down to the water.
Two sailors, beside himself, slid down the ropes into it, and took the
oars. They cast off the davit blocks, and