I didn't exactly know what I had to fear in the event of capture. I could hardly suppose they would deliberately murder me, but I had no wish to try the experiment. The fishermen on that coast are almost a distinct race; they are incredibly savage for a civilized country in this nineteenth century, and like most semi-barbarous people hold human life in very light esteem, except when it is their own that is in question. I had known more than one instance where a man had been kicked or stoned to death in their drunken brawls. By this time they must be thoroughly enraged with me, and what with drink and the excitement of the chase, it was evident that the dogged pertinacity of their characters was roused to the utmost.
About the middle of the cove in which I was standing, there was a reef of rock running out into the sea, one side of which descended abruptly into deep water, while on the other side it shelved gradually, but the bottom was strewn with boulders, so that the point of the reef was the only spot at which it was possible to land from a boat.
To that point I proceeded; having first taken off my coat and boots, and sunk them in the sea, I let myself gently down into the water, and swam carefully along close under the reef, so that no one could see me from above; then I hid myself close to the point, with everything but my head underneath the water, and that covered with seaweed.
Not long afterwards I saw the boat coming round the next headland, and my heart gave a great leap, as I saw fortune had favored me in the first step in that it was a sailing and not a rowing boat that they had brought.
Quickly she neared the point, and half-a-dozen men leapt out, pushing her off again at once and leaving two men in her, evidently to tack about until they returned. Then I dived beneath the water, came up by the stern of the boat, and before she gathered way I had twisted my handkerchief in one of the iron hinges on which the rudder was hung, and clinging to that, was towed through the water, taking care the while to keep the rudder between me and the party on shore. Happily too, it was not one of the whale boats ordinarily used for fishing on the coast that they had got hold of, but an old-fashioned pleasure-boat, half-decked, and with a projecting stern which hid me from the steersman, so that I was safe from his observation as well.
One of the men remarked once that the boat sailed very heavily and the rudder was very stiff, but the other seemed to think that that was only to be expected of such a tub; so nothing further troubled me beyond the smart of the salt water in my cuts, until the boat reached the end of her stretch and tacked; then I let go my hold, and, diving, rose within the shadow of the cliffs out of sight of my enemies, and near a shelving promontory, where I landed.
After that I made the best of my way home, arriving there with no bones broken indeed, but coatless, bootless, gunless, and in such a state of bruises and abrasions as I believe man never was in before. Since then I have gone on no more still-hunting expeditions.
THE NIGHT OF THE HOME RULE BILL
'Missed again. Here's better luck. Will you have a nip, Fitzgerald?'