Jones hastened to the side and leaning as far over the water as he could without losing his balance, strained his eyes and ears in vain. The darkness was impenetrable, and no sound but the washing of the waves against the side of the schooner could be heard in the direction of the Eastern Shore. The surface of the bay was beginning to look threatening. The tide was running out against the wind, and the white-caps were making their appearance. In a few minutes the water would be so rough that Barr’s canoe would have to turn back; then what would become of Don Gordon? Strong swimmer as he was, his strength would soon be exhausted, and he would go down——
“Firefly ahoy!” came the hail, in low but distinct tones; whereupon Enoch and Jones jumped as if they had been shot.
“Get a rope, quick,” commanded the former, “and stand by to take the helm in case I have to go overboard to his assistance. Which way did that hail come from? Sing out again, Don. Sing out loud, so that I can locate you, and never mind those men in the yawl. They shan’t get their hands on you again.”
Don heard and understood, and this time Enoch could have pointed out the wave from which his answer came. So could Jones, who threw the rope he held in his hand with such accuracy that the end of it fell over his shoulder and was instantly seized by the swimmer, who was hauled to the side in less time than it takes to tell it. A moment later he was standing on the deck. He had relieved himself of all superfluous weight by discarding his coat, vest and boots while he was in the water, and he was panting a little from the violence of his exertions; but he was not at all frightened.
“I have been shanghaied,” began Don, extending his hand to Enoch, who seized it and worked it up and down like a pump-handle.
“No use to waste time in talking,” interrupted the latter. “You’re too wet and this wind is too cold. Jones, take him into the cabin and give him something dry to put on. You will find my shooting duds in the starboard locker. Now for it,” he added, shutting his teeth hard, and glancing over his shoulder toward the yawl, which was coming on with all the speed that the brawny sailors who handled the oars could induce her to put forth. They had seen Don pulled out of the water, and the mate, the man who stood in the bow holding the lantern, supposed, of course, that the master of the schooner would stop and give him up; but when he saw Enoch crowd his vessel until she lay over on her side and walked away from the yawl as if the latter had been standing still, the mate’s eyes were opened to the fact that the deserter had been rescued by friends who did not mean to surrender him if they could help it.
“Hold on there!” shouted the mate of the coaster, shaking his fist at Enoch. “That’s my man, and I’m going to have him.”
“Why don’t you come and get him, then?” asked Enoch. “Your best plan would be to mind your own business. If you come back to Havre de Grace again I will have the last one of you arrested. You, Barr,” he shouted, seeing that the duck-shooter was heading his canoe diagonally across the Firefly’s fore-foot in the hope of being able to board her as she passed, “keep your distance. I give you fair warning that I won’t luff by so much as a hair’s breadth.”
By this Enoch meant that he would not change the course of his vessel, and that if Barr’s canoe got in his way he would run over her. Barr stormed and threatened at a furious rate, and so did the mate; but Enoch was too busy to listen to them. His first care must be to put a safe distance between himself and the coaster. The latter was a much larger and swifter craft than his own, and if her captain took it into his head to come in pursuit, he had a crew at his back that was strong enough to overpower them in spite of all the resistance they could offer. Enoch’s best plan evidently was to depend upon strategy.
“Say, Jones,” he called out, when he saw the coaster’s yawl and Barr’s canoe turn about and go back to the pier, “have you found those dry clothes for Don? Then come up and take in the lights. We’ve got to go it blind for a little while.”