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I must have splashed a little in my weakness and excitement, for I plainly perceived the figure of a man hastily leap to his feet, with an oar-blade uplifted threateningly above his head. "Don't strike, Burns!" I managed to cry aloud. "It's Wayland."
"I'll see you in in heaven first," retorted the boatman, shoving off. "Let go!" he threatened. Mr. Thurston gripped tight hold of the gunwale, and as reward for his chivalry had his knuckles rapped sharply by the oar-blade. Then he forgot himself, and Miss Welse also, and swore, and swore fervently.
I was looking through the glasses, and I saw the oar-blade shatter as he shot. Henderson duplicated it, selecting Harrison's right oar. The boat slewed around. The two remaining oars were quickly broken. The men tried to row with the splinters, and had them shot out of their hands.
"She'll pass astern," was Jim's verdict. "Won't do to drift in front of her." He sculled strongly, keeping an anxious eye on the threatening monster. Percy's hair bristled. "Harder, Jim!" he shouted. "She's going to run us down! Steamer ahoy! Keep off! Keep off!" The rushing foam smothered his cries. Meanwhile Spurling worked like a steam-engine. Two lives hung on his oar-blade.
The gondola gave somewhat beneath his foot, and the stern rose as it righted itself, but the oar-blade did not yield its curiously tenacious hold. "How nice of him, not to tell us to sit still," May exclaimed. "One does like to be treated like an intelligent being!"
They were large and broad and strongly webbed, and the short stout legs which carried them were flattened and compressed that they might slip edgewise through the water, like a feathered oar-blade.
At length, with a final jerk that made the little craft tremble to her keel, the big single sail filled, and the felucca careened to her bearings, as her canvas caught the full pressure of the wind. At the same instant I heard an oar-blade clatter as it was hastily laid in, and an exultant cheer arise from immediately under our counter.
If we only pull a couple of hours afore the sun gets hot, I think we'll be in no danger o' meetin' them any more. So let's set to, little Will'm! Another spell, and then you can rest as long's you have a mind to." The sailor seated himself close to the edge of the raft, and dropped his oar-blade in the water, using it after the fashion of a canoe-paddle.
I know the boy is comin', for I never knowed him to do a foolish thing in the woods; and it would be downright madness for him to stay in the shanty, or even go to the shanty, ef the fire had struck the balsam thicket afore he made the landin'. Lord, ef an oar-blade should break, but it won't break.
I shall not tell you how Harry acted when he came up; how he laughed and shouted, and waved his oar-blade in the air; and then how kindly and gently he lowered me down, and laid me in his boat; and when I told him the whole story, and how his boat had gone to the bottom, instead of being angry with me, he only laughed, and said it was well it had been no worse; and from that day not a syllable of reproach ever passed his lips not a word about the lost dinghy.
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