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Updated: May 15, 2025
I got a boat's crew together, and away we went in that deadly smother. An hour's row and we got within hail of the derelict as one of the crew said, 'feelin' as if the immortal life was jerked out of us. The dingey lay there on the glassy surface, not a sign of life about her. Yet I had, as I said, seen something waved. The water didn't even lap its sides. It was ghostly, I can tell you.
"Where's the dingey, Peterson?" I called, as he came up, grinning. "Coming in," said he; and forsooth that water-rat, Willy, made a better landing of it than any of us, and calmly helped us now to haul the heavy motor skiff up the beach, a few feet at a time as the waves thrust it forward. "Thank God!" I heard Helena exclaim. "Oh, thank God! We're safe, we're all safe, after all."
The rain came down dismally, and the chill of the night was very considerable, as I learned soon after ceasing my own exertions. The men made some sort of shelter for themselves by turning up the long boat and the dingey on edge, crawling into the lee, and thus finding a little protection. All but John, my cook.
The men were all on deck and busy preparing their various boats for the season's hunting. There are seven boats aboard, the captain's dingey, and the six which the hunters will use. Three, a hunter, a boat-puller, and a boat-steerer, compose a boat's crew. On board the schooner the boat-pullers and steerers are the crew.
It was the beginning of the monsoon, and we went bowling down towards Port Darwin, a crowd of Malay proas in our wake. However, the poor beggar thought he was going to die, and one night he told me his story. He was an escaped convict from Freemantle, Western Australia. He had, with others, been taken up to the northern coast to do some Government work, and had escaped in the dingey.
The yawl was lying alone, aloof from the other small craft anchored near the pier. Her mast seemed taller and her lines more graceful silhouetted against the sky, silvered by the moon. It was indeed the witching hour of night. He got aboard and tied up the dingey, cast a look round to see that everything was shipshape, took in a deep breath and went into the cabin.
"I suppose the Estrella battery will fire down on us a bit, but the ships will throw their searchlights in the gunners' faces and they won't see much of us. Then, if we are torpedoed, we should even then be able to make the desired position in the channel. It won't be so easy to hit us, and I think the men should be able to swim to the dingey.
"Here they come," said he, "and a humpin' it up, too. Look, Jean Lafitte is standin' up, wavin' at us. Something's up, sure. Mayhap, we are pursued by the enemy. Methinks 'tis hue and cry, good Sir." "It jolly well does look like it, mate," said I, taking his glasses. "Something's up." I could see the stubby dingey forced half out the water by Peterson's oars, though she made little speed enough.
I spoke, and they got more courage. I stood up in the boat, but could see nothing in the dingey. I gave a sign to go on, and soon we were alongside. In the bottom of the dingey lay a man, apparently dead, wearing the clothes of a convict. One of the crew gave a grunt of disgust, the others said nothing.
My reverie was interrupted by the heavy hand of the English skipper dropping abruptly upon my arm. 'Now then, master, said he, it's time you were stepping into the dingey. I do not inherit the politics of the aristocrats, but I have never lost their sense of personal dignity. I gently pushed away his polluting hand, and I remarked that we were still a long way from the shore.
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