“’Tis a good job, Ned,” the latter was saying, “that I didn’t let fly at the beast. The report of my rifle would have brought a nest of hornets about our ears, I’m thinking.”
“That it would,” answered my coxswain, wiping his sword in a tussock of long grass; “but how it is them swabs have got separated from their dog beats me.”
“Well, it’s the fortune of war,” said the gunner grimly, “and we must be thankful for it. At the same time, mind you, they may not be a hundred miles away, and we had better make ourselves scarce, and steer for the sea-shore with steam up in all boilers.”
Ned sprang to his feet, and after inquiring of me whether I was hurt by my fall out of the tree, he proposed that we should secrete the bloodhound’s body for fear it should be discovered by the pirates.
This was good advice, and we proceeded to act upon it. The dog’s body was cumbrous and heavy, but by our united exertions we dragged it to the edge of a neighbouring ravine and cast it down. As this particular chasm was fringed with bushes and underwood, it would not have been an easy matter to detect anything lying among the rocks at the bottom of it.
I told my shipmates that I felt sure that if the other bloodhound was still at large, it would be certain, sooner or later, to scent out Ned’s victim.
The latter, we knew, was the pirate chief’s bloodhound, as we had instantly recognized it by its mutilated ear.
“Flaying alive would be too good for me now if ever I’m nobbled,” said Ned, as we once more set out at a sharp run; “leastways if that cut-throat head of the gang knew that I’d settled the hash of his highly prized bow-wow.”
“How did you manage to kill the brute?” I asked. “It was an awful sight to see it fly at you, and I thought I saw it knock you over.”
“Well, it just did bowl me over and no mistake, sir, but I fancied that something better was in store for me than to be popped off by a furriner’s dog, and so I kept as cool as a cowcumber, and let drive with the sword just as the beast was on top of me, as it were. My killing it was a bit of a fluke, there’s no denying that, for I didn’t know the bearings of his heart in the least.”