“You go and sit down while you’re safe,” growled the old man, with his face twitching.
“You had orders from the commander of the cutter to take us ashore. Change the boat’s course directly.”
“Will you go and sit down, both of you?” cried the old man again, more fiercely, but his voice was lower and deeper.
“No,” said Mike; “and if you won’t steer for the Crag, I will.”
“This here’s my boat, and I’ll steer how I like, and nobody else shan’t touch her.”
“Your orders from the King’s officer were to take us home. Will you do it?”
“No!” roared the old man. “Go and sit down, ’fore I do you a mischief.”
Vince did not even look behind to see if he was going to be supported, for he felt full of that desperate courage which comes to an Anglo-Saxon-descended lad in an emergency like that. He saw the savagely murderous look in the old man’s eyes, and that he had quickly seized the conger bat with one hand, after passing the sheet into that which held the oar.
With one spring Vince was upon him, seizing the heavy wooden club, which he strove to tear from his grasp, just as the old man too sprang up, and Mike snatched the sheet from his hand with a jerk which sent the oar, loose now in the old man’s grasp, gliding overboard.
Mike made a dash to save it, but was flung down into the bottom of the boat as the old man thrust a foot forward and seized Vince in his tremendous grip.