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Updated: May 21, 2025
I felt, too, that he was my only friend on board, and a vague feeling had come over me that, within the next few hours, I might need a friend. Fishing occurred to me as a way of passing the time. "Are we going too fast for fishing, Tom?" I asked. "Not too fast for a barracouta," said Tom; so we put out lines and watched the stretched strings, and listened to the sea.
He had decided that, so far at least as Tarpaulin Island was concerned, his fishing days were over. Nevertheless, he ate a good dinner. At one o'clock the four academy boys rowed out to the Barracouta. All but Percy had on their oilskin aprons, or "petticoats." "Where's your regimentals, Whittington?" asked Lane. "I'm only going to look on this afternoon," replied Percy.
For a moment the bowsprit of the latter seesawed threateningly along the jibstay of the smaller craft. Then the two drew apart. Jim was white with anger. It was only by the greatest good fortune that the Barracouta had escaped. "What do you mean, you lubber?" he cried. "Can't you steer?" "Jingo! but that was a close shave!" responded the man at the wheel. "I must have lost my head for a minute."
"That's good luck;" and he proceeded to turn over the poor creature, and cut from his back, immediately below his head, a flat inch and a half of skin lined and stamped like a rubber sole the device by which he held on to the belly of the barracouta much as the circle of wet leather holds the stone in a school-boy's sling.
Percy's face was somewhat white; for the last half-hour he had been strangely subdued. "I don't feel very good," said he. Spurling eyed him critically, then scanned the faces of the others. The Barracouta was rising and falling on the long swells in a manner decidedly disconcerting to weak stomachs. Stevens and the young Italian did not look much happier than Percy.
Meanwhile, the wind fell away to a calm, of which circumstance the slaves took advantage by manning the sweeps and gradually withdrawing from the vicinity of the Barracouta, This was about sunset; and three hours later a bright blaze upon the horizon proclaimed that the notorious Francesca had either caught or been set on fire in some inexplicable way.
It was for this service that the Barracouta had been selected, she being a brand-new ship especially built for work on the West African coast, and modelled to sail at a high speed upon a light draught of water.
At Captain Stopford's suggestion, however, the Felicidad was purchased into the service, and with all speed fitted to serve as a tender to the Barracouta, her extraordinary speed peculiarly fitting her for such employment, while her exceedingly light draught promised to render her especially useful in the exploration of the various rivers along the coast, many of which are very shallow.
The Barracouta soon arrived upon the Francesca's weather quarter, and the evidences of the fearful deed then became unmistakable, the scuppers still bearing the stains of the ensanguined stream that had poured from them, while among the whole of that crowd of yelling, fiercely gesticulating blacks, not a single white face was to be seen.
It may help stave off trouble." "Aren't you going to take the gun?" Percy inquired. "Gun? No! What'd we want of that? We don't intend to shoot anybody." Twenty minutes after the Barracouta left Sprowl's Cove she was thudding into the Sly Hole. The sloop still lay at anchor in its center, but the dory was grounded on the beach. From the woods above, ax-strokes echoed faintly.
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