“Right. Here we are.”
What the captain said in reply was confined to the word “Thank—” The rest was smothered by a sharp crash, and a check which took the small boat in which Jack sat sharply up against the other’s stern.
The crash was followed by a savage yelling and splashing; and as they went on again directly, the men pulling with all their might. Jack was conscious of struggling and blows, and he grasped the fact that they had rowed at full speed against the stern or bows of another canoe which had been invisible in the darkness, and that some of her occupants had seized the men’s oars on the port side. The blows, he found, were delivered by their men to shake off their adversaries, some of whom he dimly saw struggling in the water as the boat passed on; and, unable to control himself, Jack leaned over and caught at a hand just within his reach, the fingers closing upon his in a fierce grasp and nearly jerking him out of the boat, a fate from which he was saved by Ned, who seized him round the middle and dragged him back.
“Got him?” cried the doctor excitedly.
“You should have said ‘Got it,’ sir,” grumbled the man, with a drawing-in of his breath as if in pain. “But he’s all right. I wish I was.”
“What’s the manner, man?”
“Him a-holding his gun like that. Oh, my crikey! What a whack I got on the cheek!”
“What an escape, Jack!” cried the doctor.
“But the poor wretch was drowning. Hark! their canoe must be sinking—men struggling in the water.”
“Never mind: let them,” said the doctor. “They can swim like seals, and their canoe will float like a log.”