It was passed to me, and after a couple of misses, I felt the hook take hold, drew up gently, and as I hauled in, we found that the boy was coming up feet first, the iron having passed between the ring of the shackle and the boy’s ankle.
“Steady, my lad, steady!” cried Morgan, as I drew the boy nearer, and the next minute he was seized and drawn into the boat, feeble and helpless now, half dead, and making no further attempt to escape as the boat was paddled back toward the landing-place.
“That’s quieted him a bit anyhow, sir,” said Morgan. “Won’t take his clothes long to dry, Master George, will it?”
“Poor fellow! He has been so ill-used,” said my father, “that he thinks we mean to do him harm.”
“Oh, we’ll soon teach him better, sir,” replied Morgan, as I laid my hand on the boy’s side to feel if his heart was beating. “Oh, he arn’t drowned, sir, and the wash ’ll do him no end of good. Here we are!”
He leaped out, made the boat fast, and then, coming back, was about to carry the boy ashore; but my father had forestalled him, and stepped out with the boy in his arms, laying him gently down on the grass, and then looking wonderingly at Morgan, who had followed, and knelt down to pass a rope through the shackle and make it fast to a ring-bolt used for mooring the boat, and driven into one of the tree-trunks close to the water.
“Not necessary,” said my father.
“Begging your pardon, sir, he’ll come to and be off while we’re busy perhaps. Now about the man; I’m rather ’fraid about him.”
“We must get him ashore,” said my father; and after securing the boat parallel with the log which formed the bottom of the landing-place, they managed to get the poor creature, who was quite an inert mass, out upon the bank, and then, after placing one of the bottom-boards of the boat under his back, I joined in, and we dragged him right up to where the boy lay insensible.
“I’m afraid we are too late,” said my father, as he felt the black’s pulse.