The next time I was ready for it, feeling as I did that it was some of Bob Hampton’s work, and reaching out as far as I could get my arm, I gazed straight before me, trying vainly to make out what it was in the darkness.
“See anything?”
“No,” I said; but the next instant something struck my hand, swept by, came back, and I had hold of it to draw into the cabin, cut the string again, and then hastily closed the window—just in time too, for a wave broke against it directly after with a heavy thud.
Chapter Twenty Two.
As soon as the roar and rush of water had passed, Mr Frewen whispered—
“Another pistol?”
“Yes,” I said, for I had been hurriedly tearing off the drenched canvas in which it had been wrapped so securely that though the woollen bag in which pistol and cartridges lay was quite damp, as far as I could tell they were none the worse for being dipped again and again into the sea.
For there is a capital quality in canvas as a protector; as the material gets thoroughly soaked it swells and tightens, till it is a long way on toward being waterproof; and after carefully feeling the weapon, and examining it in every way we could in the darkness, Mr Frewen expressed his opinion that it was uninjured, and placed it in his breast to dry.