“Mr Jarette.”
“Captain Jarette, doctor,” cried the man, angrily. “Now all of you row and take this mad fellow away, before I am tempted to shoot him.”
Bob Hampton uttered a low growling sound as he sought in the darkness for the boat-hook, stood up, and began to thrust the boat from the ship’s side.
“No; stop,” cried Mr Frewen, fiercely, “we cannot desert the Dennings like this. Ahoy!—on board there! Mr Denning, where are you?”
“Here,” came from one of the cabin-windows aft.
“Row beneath that window,” cried the doctor, and the boat was not rowed but dragged slowly there by Bob Hampton, who kept hooking on by the main and mizzen-chains.
“Keep off!” roared Jarette fiercely. “Do you hear? Keep off, or I fire.”
But Bob Hampton paid no heed to his orders till the boat was beneath one of the round cabin-windows, and then he thrust the boat about six feet from the ship.
He had a reason for so doing, and he had hardly steadied the boat when, in obedience to an order from Jarette, something tremendously heavy was thrown over the side, and fell with a loud splash between us and the ship, deluging us with the shower it raised, and making the boat rock.
But Mr Frewen paid no heed to that which would have driven a hole through the bottom of the boat, perhaps killed one of its occupants at the same moment.