They were about to obey, when there was a whirl, and then a jerk of the boat, that threw them flat on their faces. They heard William's voice crying hoarsely, "O Lord hab----;" and when they arose and looked around, they saw that he was missing, and that their boat was rushing onward with a swiftness that made the water boil.
"William! William!" Robert called in bewilderment; but no answer came, and they saw him no more.
"O mercy! Brother Robert! cousin Harold!" cried Mary, "what is the matter?"
Robert looked vacantly towards the receding shore. Harold answered, "One of these fish has tripped our anchor, and is carrying us out to sea."
The horrid truth was evident; and it sent a chill like death through their limbs and veins. Mary screamed and fell back senseless. Robert started up as though about to spring from the boat. Harold covered his face with his hands, gave one groan, then with compressed lips and expanded nostrils hastened to the bow of the boat. As for poor little Frank, it was not for some moments that he could realize the state of the case; but when he did, his exhibition of distress was affecting. He stretched his hands towards home; and as he saw his father running to the bluff, he called out, "O, father, help us--dear father! O send a boat after us! O----!" Perceiving his father fall upon his knees and clasp his hands in prayer, he cried out, "O, yes, father, pray to God to help us, and he will do it--God can help us!" Then falling upon his own knees, he began, "O God bless my father and mother, my brothers and sisters! O God help us!"
By this time the boat had passed fully half a mile from shore. Harold's movement forward had been made with the intention of doing something, he knew not what, to relieve the boat from the deadly grasp of the devil fish. He first seized his rifle, and standing upon the forward platform, aimed it at the back of the monster, which could be distinctly seen at two fathoms' distance, clutching the chain which constituted their cable. Despairing of reaching him with a ball through the intervening water, he laid aside the rifle, and seizing William's ax, aimed several lusty blows at the cable chain. He struck it just on the edge of the boat where there was the greatest prospect of breaking it; but the chain was composed of links unusually short and strong, and the blows of the ax served only to sink it into the soft wood of the boat.
"Robert," said he, "look for Frank's hatchet, and come here." But Robert, stupefied with fear, sat staring at him from beside his prostrate sister and weeping brother, and seemed neither to understand nor to hear.
"Robert," he repeated, "get up, and be a man. Bring Frank's hatchet, and help me break this chain."
Still he did not come. "It is no use, Harold," he replied. "Do you not see that sister is dead? William is dead too! We shall all die!"
"Robert! Robert!" he reiterated, almost with a threat, "do rouse up and be a man. Mary is not dead, she has only fainted; she will come to directly. Come here and help me."