Chap still stood upon the stern, with his gun pointed to the two men, who, having held their heads under water until their faces were nearly black with suffocation, had now raised themselves, and were begging piteously that Chap would put down that gun and let them out. But the relentless Chap was just beginning a fresh series of denunciations, when Adam sprang on board of the Maggie, and, seizing his arm, threw up the muzzle of the gun.
“What on earth are you about?” cried the astonished sailor. “Are you goin’ to kill ’em?”
“No,” said Chap, coolly; “I haven’t any idea of killing them. I only wanted to soak some of the wickedness out of them.”
“Well, I reckon they’re soaked about enough,” said Adam.
“All right!” said Chap, with a grand air. “You have my permission to come out now, and I have nothing more to say to you. I think you understand by this time what sort of an opinion I have of you.”
And, so saying, he shouldered his gun, and went ashore, where, joining the two boys, he gave them an account of the adventure, which they received with shouts of laughter.
“Now, then,” said Adam to the two dripping men, who had climbed on the deck of the Maggie, “you had better put on some dry clothes, and get out of this as quick as you can. I don’t want to see you shot; but you’ve done enough to that young man to warrant him in gettin’ any kind o’ satisfaction out o’ you, short o’ killin’, and I don’t know what he may take it into his head to do next. I s’pose you put in here for water.”
The young men were dragging some old trousers and shirts from under their bunks, and while one of them surlily remarked that they had got their water, and did not want to stay there any longer, the other made an earnest appeal to have their guns restored to them.
“Not much!” said Adam. “I wouldn’t trust you with ’em afore, and I guess you’re in a worse temper now than you were when I took ’em. We’ll leave the guns at the hotel in Titusville, and you can go there and git ’em; and that’s all I have to say about it.”
And, with this remark, Adam left the Maggie, which in ten minutes more had pushed off and was sailing away.