It was like being started on a school race, and my breath came short as if I were running. I crept forward as silently as possible to where Bob Hampton was seated, and it was so dark that I had to feel for him.
“Go aft and take an oar with you,” I whispered. “Don’t speak, and don’t make a sound.”
Then I crept right into the bows, and stood there gazing at the faint lights on board the ship, and trying to think of nothing but the task I had in hand.
“I’ve got it to do,” I said to myself, “and I will do it for Miss Denning’s and her brother’s sake.”
Then I shivered, but I made a fresh effort to be firm, and said half laughingly—but oh! what a sham it was!—“It’s only like going in for a game of hide-and-seek. There’ll be no one on deck but Jarette.”
I stopped short there, for I thought of his pistol and Walters’ wound.
“Hang his pistol!” I exclaimed mentally, “perhaps it isn’t loaded again, and he couldn’t hit me in the dark.—But he hit Walters and poor old Neb Dumlow,” something within me argued.
“Well,” I replied to the imaginary arguer, “if my wound when it comes is no worse than poor old Neb’s, I shan’t much mind.”
And all the while I could feel that we were moving toward the ship, for though I could not hear a splash aft nor a ripple of the sea against the bows, the boat rolled slightly, so that I had to spread my legs apart to keep my balance.
Oh, how dark it was that night! And how thankful I felt! For saving that the lights in the cabin shone out, there was no trace of the ship; nothing ahead but intense blackness, and not a star to be seen.