“Help!” growled the captain; “what for? Here, you, let me have that there kris. Hitch it on that cord.”
As he spoke the captain threw down the thin line with which the Malay had been bound, the poor wretch snatching at it frantically; but as he did so it was pulled away from his despairing clutch.
“I could noose him,” drawled Jack Penny coolly. “I’ve often caught father’s rams like that.”
“Yes, but your father’s rams hadn’t got knives,” said the captain grimly.
“No, but they’d got horns,” said Jack quietly. “Ain’t going to drown him, are you?”
“Not I, boy; he’ll drown himself if we leave him alone.”
“I don’t like to see fellows drown,” said Jack; and he left the bulwarks and sat down on the hatchway edge. “Tell a fellow when it’s all over, Joe Carstairs.”
“Help, help!” came hoarsely from the poor wretch; and my hands grew wet inside, and a horrible sensation seemed to be attacking my chest, as I watched the struggles of the drowning man with starting eyes. For though he swam like a fish, the horror of his situation seemed to have unnerved him, and while he kept on swimming, it was with quick wearying effort, and he was sinking minute by minute lower in the water.
“For Heaven’s sake, throw the poor wretch a rope, captain,” said the doctor.
“What! to come aboard and knife some of us?” growled the captain. “Better let him drown. Plenty of better ones than him to be had for a pound a month.”