“I guess, Cap. you had better keep a little ahead. You know the way better than I do!”
But somehow the captain had disappeared. I shouted, and paddled rapidly in the direction I supposed him to be. No answer!
“I believe the alligators have got him already,” thought I; and you should have seen the way that paddle went through the water, driving me back toward the distant wharf where the lantern still twinkled. My foot encountered something.
Oh, horrors! what a yell I gave! You can wager that brief second will never be forgotten. No, sir! But it was only a stray log; and just then the captain’s merry laugh resounded over the water close at hand, as he came floating toward me, delighted with the success of his trick; and he began to sing a song of his own composing, improvising the music and splashing his paddle in time to his melody:
“I’ll take my sleep on the rolling deep,
Your downy couch let others keep;
My paddle true will guide me through,
My life-garb is better than any canoe;—
Whoop! hurrah! yes, than any canoe!”
The echoes of the refrain died away among the woods of the far opposite shore, startling a brood of wild fowl from their rest in the sedge of the bayou.