“And haow?”
“I will tell you. The redskins know that we three are bobbing round the island, and so long as they know that, they will give us a wide berth. They know that we’ve got some women with us, and a few more rifles too, but it’s we three that are keeping them away. S’pose one of us gets tuk, what’ll hinder ’em longer?”
“’Spose one of ’em doesn’t get tuck.”
“He will then be killed.”
“But there are no Injins there.”
It is a fact, that a man may commence with an assertion of absolute falsehood and, conscious at the beginning that he is defending such, argue himself in time, into the belief that it is truth. Then it was that Teddy, as he stepped gaily out upon the beach, was greatly relieved of anxiety by his own persistency in adhering to what he well knew was error. He was well nigh convinced of what he had scarcely a hope before, that there were no savages upon the flat-boat.
Teddy had walked two-thirds of the distance to the hulk, and was within a few feet of the water, when he paused. He had discovered a startling thing!
That which arrested the brave-hearted Irishman, was the sight of a tuft of an Indian’s head, visible for one moment only just above the gunwale, when it dropped suddenly from view again.
Smith and Napyank, noticing his hesitation, called out in a whisper for him to return. This very call was the means of sending him forward again. He was resolved that they should never laugh at this adventure, and with rather a quickened step, he strode forward, and grasping the gunwale with one hand, he carried himself with one bound, over upon the deck.
He had left his rifle behind, and was armed only with his knife. His two friends breathlessly watched him and listened. They saw his head and shoulders gradually lower as he walked undauntedly toward the stern of the boat, until the bow hid them from sight, and then all was still.