Dick could not wait to explain, for the situation was one which demanded instant action. When he had recovered from his amazement at the result of the unlucky shot from the forest, and had seen that the tiller was broken, he had no time to reflect that but for the movement which he had made a moment before he would have been killed by the very bullet which had wrought the mischief. Action, instant and effectual, was required, and his eye had at once sought for a substitute. Suddenly he remembered the iron bar used for stoking the fire, and as he shouted for it he prepared to place it in position. With a bound he was on the deck right aft, and kicking the butt of the fractured shaft from behind, shot it out of its socket. Then he gripped the rudder post and twisted it with all his strength, contriving to head the launch for the centre of the stream. Two or three seconds later the native was beside him, and as Dick held the post the bar was pushed into the socket.
“Hab um now! Get over oder side plenty quick. Put um over, massa.”
Dick did so, with a heave which again caused the launch to roll till water spurted through her scuppers, while the two aboard crouched on the deck and held on for their lives. Then he set her on a new course, turning her head diagonally across the stream.
“Get to the rifle,” he said sharply. “And first lay mine here so that I can grip them. That’s right. Crouch in your engine well so as to avoid the bullets. Do you hear? Go!”
Johnnie’s eyes had asked a question. He had as good as said to his master when the caution to sit in the engine well had been given, “And what massa do? He not crouch. Plenty ob cover for Johnnie, but what about massa?” But Dick brushed aside his question with one word, and proceeded to fix the bar between his knees, as he had done with the wooden tiller.
“Let ’em shoot at it again,” he said, “and I guess the bullet won’t do much harm. In any case it was a fluke, and not a bad attempt to pot me. Hah! That got one fellow. I shall have to play with these men.”
As he ran the launch across towards the far bank, slanting her down stream all the while, he had seen that the fleet of canoes was now spread out across the river, and though there were fewer of their boats on the far side, and a narrow opening still remained there, yet the path to the sea was barred. He therefore steered for the far side. But a plan to get free was forming in his brain, and he watched for a chance to carry it out, his eye riveted on the two war canoes.
“It’s those fellows I want to dodge,” he said. “I wonder how we should fare if we ran into one of them.”
He was thinking of charging one, and measured the size of the stout launch against that of each one of the native craft.
“We’re about the same length,” he said, “and as to weight it’s a toss-up. She’s crammed with men, and we’ve engines and a boiler aboard. There’s nothing in it. All depends on how we hit her. All right!”