"What are you about?" he asked him.
"Well," Tranquil replied, "I want to pay my debt to your captain; he risked his life for me, and I am going in return to risk mine to save him."
"Good!" the Master exclaimed, "By heaven! You are a man. But keep quiet, that doesn't concern you; it is my business."
And ere Tranquil had time to answer him, he plunged into the waves. The Captain had presumed too much on his strength, he was hardly in the water ere his wound caused him intolerable suffering, and his arm was paralyzed. With that tenacity which formed the basis of his character, he tried to contend against the pain, and overcome it, but nature had proved more powerful than his will and energy, a dizziness had come over his sight, and he felt himself slowly sinking. At this moment he uttered that parting cry for help to which Lovel had responded by flying to his aid. Ten minutes passed, minutes of agony, during which the persons who remained in the boat scarce dared to breathe.
"Courage, my lads," the panting voice of Lovel was suddenly heard saying, "he is saved!"
The sailors burst into a shout of joy, and laying on their oars, redoubled their efforts. A frightful discharge answered them, and the balls flattened against the sides of the pinnace and dashed up the water around. The Mexicans, who had come within range, opened a terrible fire on the Texans, but the latter did not reply.
A dull noise was heard, followed by cries of despair and imprecations, and a black mass passed to windward of the long boat. It was the brig coming to the assistance of its crew, and in passing it sunk and dispersed the enemy's boats.
When she set foot on the deck of the brig, Carmela, at length succumbing to her emotions, lost her senses. Tranquil raised her in his arms, and, aided by Quoniam and the Captain, carried her hastily down to the cabin.
"Captain," a sailor shouted, as he rushed after him, "the Mexicans, the Mexicans!"
While the Texans were engaged in taking their wounded aboard, feeling convinced that the Mexican boats had been all, or at any rate the majority of them, sunk by the brig, they had not dreamed of watching an enemy they supposed crushed. The latter had cleverly profited by this negligence to rally, and collecting beneath the bows of the brig, had boldly boarded her, by climbing up the main chains, the spritsails, and any ropes' ends they had been able to seize. Fortunately, Master Lovel had the boarding nettings triced up on the previous evening, and through this wise precaution on the part of the old sailor, the desperate surprise of the Mexicans did not meet with the success they anticipated from it.