“Shall I fetch a rope, sir? Can you hold him?”
“Yes, I think so. We can manage him between us.”
Morgan leaped ashore, and he was about to go up to the house, when a rush and scramble brought him back, for the boy was struggling like an eel; and how he managed I do not know, but he wriggled from beneath my father’s foot, passed under the thwart, and, as I tried to stop him, threw me backwards, and was over the side with a splash and beneath the stream.
As I uttered a cry of horror I saw the boy’s woolly head appear for a moment above the surface, and then go down, weighted as he was by the shackles on his ankles; and, as I gazed, I nearly went after him, the boat gave such a lunge, but I saved myself, and found that it was caused by Morgan leaping back rope in hand, after unfastening the moorings, and it was well he did so, sending the boat well off into the stream, floating after our purchase.
“See him?” cried my father, eagerly, as he threw off hat and coat ready to dive in.
“Not yet, sir,” said Morgan, standing ready with the boat-hook.
“I would not have him drowned for five hundred pounds,” cried my father. “No, no, George, my boy, you must not go after him; his struggles would drown you both.”
“Don’t see him, sir. Big alligator hasn’t got him, has it?”
“Don’t talk like that, man,” cried my father, with a shudder; “but you ought to be able to see him in this clear water.”
“I see him!” I cried, excitedly; “give me the boat-hook.”