They were hornets! Regular old warrior hornets! It was a nest of them, ’most as big as a bushel basket, that Mark had thrown down into the boat. It was as bad as a dynamite bomb and more painful, though not quite so dangerous.
While our little fighters were keeping the enemies’ minds occupied, they forgot their navy, and it floated off slow.
“Tallow,” says Mark, and pointed.
I wasn’t crazy about the job he’d picked out for me; not that I was afraid of the Japanese just then—they had all they wanted to look for—but I was afraid of the hornets. However, there was nothing for it but to obey orders. If Mark Tidd had the nerve to use their nest for a bomb, I had the nerve to go get that boat. So I plunged in, clothes and all, and swam across.
It wasn’t any trick at all to tow back the man-of-war, and not a hornet got me. I calculate they were all busy with the Japanese.
Well, I dragged the boat to shore, and we all celebrated. It was a great victory all around. Mark said it ought to be one of the Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. We’d licked the enemy, we’d captured their whole navy, and, to cap the climax, we’d captured the little cane that belonged to The Man Who Will Come. That was a battle trophy worth having. Some day we’re going to send it to Washington to be put up in a case in the national war museum.
It was an hour before the broken and scattered forces of the enemy dared come out of the water, and when they did they didn’t look as though they would be able to take the offensive again for quite a while to come. They were covered with bumps and swellings and they limped and groaned and muttered.
“P-p-put mud on the stings,” Mark called to them. “It’ll take the f-fire out.”
Not one of them said a word. They just mogged along to the hotel, a pretty unhappy lot.
“Did you get stung much?” I asked Mark.