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They said his surf-boat had reached the steamer, had taken on board a load of soldiers, some eight or ten, and had started back through the surf, when on the bar a heavy breaker upset the boat, and all were lost except the boy who pulled the bow-oar, who clung to the rope or painter, hauled himself to the upset boat, held on, drifted with it outside the breakers, and was finally beached near a mile down the coast.
The bow-oar of the German boat, who had a blood-stained bandage round his head, also stared. "Engländer!" he said. "Verdammte Schweine!" and added, "Fünf! ..." whereupon he and his companions also averted their heads, because they were four. They passed each other thus. The waves that washed over the raft rolled the dead man's head to and fro, as if he found the situation rather preposterous.
But those were man-of-war's men: The sedate-looking craft now lying off Fishcrate Island wasn't likely to carry any such cargo. Nevertheless, we watched the coming in of the long-boat with considerable interest. As it drew near, the figure of the man pulling the bow-oar seemed oddly familiar to me. Where could I have seen him before? When and where?
I occupied my usual place in the captain's boat, next the bow-oar, just beside Tom Lokins, who was ready with his harpoons in the bow. Young Borders pulled the oar directly in front of me. The captain himself steered, and, as our crew was a picked one, we soon left the other two boats behind us.
Branches of willow were stuck in all round and inside the boat, which most effectually concealed her, so much so, that when Lieutenant Baker arrived the next night at the spot, he was observed standing up in the stern-sheets of the gig, looking wistfully towards the sandy beach, without seeing anything of the boat, though the starboard bow-oar of his gig splashed the water in Lieutenant Mackinnon's face.
The inmates were rushing out of the house, negroes were running here and there, apparently without any settled purpose, and not a few women were screaming. "I wonder what the matter is at that house," I said to the oarsmen, who were back to the scene, and could see nothing of it. "Matter enough, I should say," replied Ben Bowman, who pulled the bow-oar, as he looked behind him.
One of these, sitting at the bow-oar, looked over his shoulder, and saw a heavy sea rolling towards the boat, and inadvertently expressed some fear. The other man, on hearing this, glanced round, and in doing so missed a stroke of his oar.
There is that wonderful old stroke-oar in the Queen's galley. How many years has he pulled? Day and night, in rough water or smooth, with what invincible vigor and surprising gayety he plies his arms. There is in the same Galere Capitaine, that well-known, trim figure, the bow-oar; how he tugs, and with what a will! How both of them have been abused in their time!
But as one of the boats was in the act of entering this creek, the seaman at the bow-oar, who had just entered the service, having inadvertently expressed some fear from a heavy sea which came rolling towards the boat, and one of the artificers having at the same time looked round and missed a stroke with his oar, such a preponderance was thus given to the rowers upon the opposite side that when the wave struck the boat it threw her upon a ledge of shelving rocks, where the water left her, and she having KANTED to seaward, the next wave completely filled her with water.
So thought Von Hammer as he grasped the long, swaying steer oar, and swung the whale-boat's head to the white line of surf. 'Give it to her, boys; now's our chance there's a bit of a lull now, eh, Pulu? Bend to it, Rídan, my lad. Out shot the boat, Pulu pulling stroke, Rídan bow-oar, and two sturdy, square-built Savage Islanders amidships.
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