Without a word, but with an agonized feeling in his heart, Mat jumped up, and driving his lever far down into the mutilated fish, and planting his feet against the opposite rock, gave one long and frantic “prise;” when, oh, joy! through the blinding streams of perspiration that ran over his face, he first saw the stones falling in, and he plainly felt the double shell slowly give.
“Pull, Tim!” he yelled; and his brother was free, being, however, forced to lift his crippled foot with both hands out of the jaws of the fish, whilst Mat never relaxed his hold of the lever.
The instant that the foot was released, and the timber thrown aside, the stones fell completely in, and the shell closed with a sudden snap. Mat, however, did not wait to see more, for merely administering a furious blow on to the beast, which only had the effect of splintering the lips, he seized the almost unconscious Tim, hoisted him on his shoulders, and hurried as fast as he could over cruelly sharp rocks to the shore, somewhere about a quarter of a mile distant. With a couple of rests he got over the distance, and at length sank down with his burden under some shady trees, through which a little stream of water flowed on its way to the sea.
“I believe that pure water has saved my life,” said Tim, after he had drunk his fill, and had his leg, which was terribly swollen and cut, swathed in some soft bark, which was hanging down in ragged tatters on a large tree close by, and which Mat wetted in the sweet water before applying.
Our foresters, it must be borne in mind, were in a woeful plight. True, they had escaped the one great danger which they shared during that terrible swim; but what had been their experience, so far, on the shore? In the first place, they were aware that savages were about, for they had seen their lately-used camping-places, at all events their fishing resorts, and remains of their recent fires. Then the action of the salt water and wind on their skins; still worse, the powerful rays of a tropical sun, subsequently, had caused a sort of boiling-peeling process to set in. Added to this, Tim, as we have seen, had had his ankle-bone nearly crushed through, and Mat, now that he had a moment of leisure, found that his old wound—that one inflicted by the bloodhound—had broken open, a fact which he was aware of during the last two hours from the pain he felt. It is doubtful, had they not found shade and good water, whether our lads would not have left their bones on the strand.
After Mat had made up a soft bed of grass and bark for his brother, and covered him over with the same material, he stepped outside the timber to have a look round.
Having finished his survey, he was returning to doctor his own leg when he descried a thin column of smoke, which seemed suddenly to shoot up in the distance. Hastening to Tim, he told him what he had just seen, and that he believed the fire must have been just lit, for that there was no appearance of smoke when he first quitted him to look round.
“Now, Tim,” he continued, “men have lit that fire, and, be they friends or foes, we’d better seek them out when we can travel; for I know we can’t last long without fire or clothes, and both of us wounded; but I’ll strap up my leg tight with this soft bark stuff, and then after a bit I’ll be able to carry you. I can easily do it, with rests; anyhow, we’ll get away from this salt water, there’s too much danger in it.”
Tim answered wearily enough,—
“Let’s rest here a day or so, and then, I think, with your help, in a cool night or early morning, I can get along.”