For, failing in his efforts to scull the boat along with one oar, and evidently getting confused in his excitement, the uninjured man now sat down on a thwart and got two oars over the side to begin to row to where a drowning man lay, fully a dozen yards from him.
“Gone!” cried Tom Fillot, excitedly, as the boat was pulled to the place where the man had made a last feeble struggle and then sunk.
Mark drew a deep breath, and uttered a faint groan, as the sailor stood up in the boat, hitcher in hand, looking wildly about.
A volley of cries now came from the poop, just over where the prisoners were watching. Words of advice, orders, abuse, were hurled at the man’s head, and Mark, as he watched, thought of his efforts in the cutter to save the blacks’ lives, and it seemed to him like a natural form of retaliation coming upon the slavers’ heads, as history almost repeated itself, with a difference.
He was, he felt, spectator of a tragedy, and a cold sensation of horror almost paralysed him, but passed away instantly as he saw the man standing in the boat suddenly make a dash with the hook and draw something toward him.
There was a cheer from the cabin window, as the boat careened over, and the nearly drowned man was dragged in.
“Say, messmates,” said Tom Fillot, rubbing one ear, “that can’t be right.”
“What, Tom?” cried Mark, excitedly.
“Why, sir, our cheering at an enemy being saved. We ought to be glad to see him drown, oughtn’t we?”
“It was the man, not the enemy, Tom,” said Mark.