“Ye blaggard ye!” she fairly screamed, staggering clumsily toward the startled Englishman; “ye hov me fan! Bad luck to ye, ye divil! Give me that!”
Without waiting for a word of remonstrance from Mr. Hawes, she dealt him a blow on the cheek bone that sent him backward over the spar, with his feet elevated in the night air; and, at the same time, staggered, herself, whirled round and fell prostrate on the rough stones and sand of the beach.
She was actually crazy. She screamed, struggled convulsively, swore a few regular brimstone oaths, then lay a little while apparently insensible, and gasping as though she were in a retort and the air had suddenly been pumped away.
By this time, quite a concourse of curious natives had collected around us.
After an apparent death-struggle of three-quarters of a minute, she actually ceased to breathe, and I feared she was dead. I took her ample wrist in my hand and there was not the slightest perceptible pulsation. Here was a go! Here was a fix for John Smith! Night; foreign country; a dead woman on the beach; only two of my race present, and they scared like the deuce; surrounded by a score or two of the swarthy, blood-thirsty natives of a semi-barbarous land! O, how I wished that crutch of mine were but clicking on the side-walk in front of Trinity church, New York; or the State House, Philadelphia. But no, there I was; and the gloom of night, mingled with the black faces of vicious and cowardly ruffians, frowned on me. O, Smith! Smith!
What was to be done? What could be done? Fortunately, the boat was soon after ready, and I thought the best thing we could do would be to have the “body” put aboard, and take it along. My companions concurred. But how should we get it into the boat? The quickest way was to hire the natives, so, I spoke to them. In my extremity, I remembered that but a small proportion of those present could speak English, so I endeavored to address them with a mixture of both English and Spanish. As nearly as I can recollect, I thus spoke to any and all of them, individually and collectively:
“Hombre! Signor! Carryo this hero fatwomano into boato for cuarto rialos! Do you mind!”
It appears they comprehended me, for eight of them, in view of half-a-dollar each, laid hold of the “form” and proceeded to carry it into the boat. It was indeed a clumsy burden. Yet they conveyed it to the boat on scientific principles. The following was the programme: any anatomist will readily comprehend:
Two of the Hombres supported their share of the weight by locking hands beneath the glutæus maximi; two others, in like manner, supported the clavicles, coracoid process and acromion of scapula, the humeri, ulna, radius, et cetera, besides the sternum and latissimus dorsi; two others supported the tibia, fibula, gastrocnemius, tibialis anticus and extensor communis digitorum; the seventh supported the base of tibia, astragalus, peronæus tertius, abductor minimi digiti, and extensor pollicis proprius; while the eighth took charge of the occipito-frontalis temporalis, os frontis, parietal and orbicularis palpebrarum.
Thus they conveyed the inanimate form to the small boat; but they were just on the point of “dumping” it in, when it returned to consciousness, opened its eyes and mouth, breathed, and was once more Mrs. “Pheel.”