Splash!
A moment’s pause and then—
Splash!
Jem had followed suit, and there was a faint display—if the expression is allowable—of water fireworks, as innumerable pinhead-like beads of light flashed away in every direction.
“Lanthorns here!” cried the captain. “Sentries, quick! This way.”
He reached the spot from which Don and Jem had taken their daring leap, and in less than a minute the light of a couple of lanthorns was thrown upon the sea.
“Come back!” roared the captain, “or I fire. Marines, make ready.”
The lanthorns’ light gleamed further on the sea as those who held them clambered up the shrouds and held them at arms’ length, and then dimly-seen were the backs of the heads of the two swimmers, who made the water swirl as they struck out with all their might.
“Do you hear, you scoundrels?” roared the captain again. “Come back, or I fire.”
There was no reply and the heads began to grow more faint in the gloom, while now the news had spread through the ship, and officers and men came tumbling up the companion ladder and out of their cabins.