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Updated: May 3, 2025
Mark did what he could with Tom Fillot's help, doubling up a jacket for a pillow, and laying the lieutenant at his ease, before taking advantage of the mist beginning to disappear beneath the powerful rays of the morning sun to try and make out their position. This was soon done.
Mark did know it as he hung there with his teeth set fast, for Tom Fillot's fingers pressed into his flesh, and seemed to be crushing it against the bones of his ankle. "Hi, some on you, get more grip o' me," shouted Tom. "Get well hold, Dick. You, too, Bob. Now, then, haul away, and have us both in together."
He had just come to this conclusion, when he caught sight of Tom Fillot's occupation, which was the unravelling of the boat's painter. "What's that for, Fillot?" he asked, sharply. "Well, sir, I couldn't see no fruit trees nor no fields o' corn ashore, so I thought the best thing to do would be to have a try at ketching a fish."
I saw 'em all swimming for the bank, and they'd get there before the crocks woke up to try for 'em." "Crocodiles?" "Oh yes, sir, I should think there'd be plenty of them in the river: sure to be in a hot country like this." "I wish I could feel sure they were safe." Tom Fillot's look at the young officer was a mingling of admiration and contempt.
He lurched forward as he suddenly ceased speaking, uttered a low groan, and but for Tom Fillot's strong arm he would have gone overboard.
Tom Fillot's return was looked for so eagerly on account of the action of the prisoners, who had begun to clamour for the hatch to be opened, and after several orders to be silent had been disregarded, now beat heavily on the hatchway cover, and shouted to be let out.
He led the way into the cabin, saying, "We don't want to show people ashore where we are. Hah! that's right. This is Tom Fillot's doing. He's a handy fellow." He pointed to the preparations for a meal of no mean proportions, for the skipper of the schooner and his crew had been liberally provided for by their owners; and now, feeling hungry for the first time that day, Mark ate a hearty supper.
But Mark felt as if the skipper's words were correct, and that he dare not fire down into that cabin to the destruction of some poor wretch's life, so he did not to use Tom Fillot's expression "Let 'em have it," but gave orders sharply in the way of defence, and not attack.
He was so deeply plunged in thought that he did not notice Tom Fillot's return, and he gave quite a start as the man laid a hand upon his knee. "Look there, sir," he whispered. "Eh? where?" "Over the trees, behind me." "Fire?" whispered Mark, excitedly, as he gazed at a warm glow away beyond the forest. "No, sir; the moon. She'll soon be up, and we must have that schooner in the dark."
The blacks soon forgot the scare, and lay basking about on deck perfectly happy, and ready to smile at the crew; and, saving a few cuts and bruises, which did not show, apparently very little the worse for their encounters. The swellings, too, on board the prize crew, to use Tom Fillot's way of expressing it, had diminished rapidly. A little too rapidly, Tom said.
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