“Ay, lad, only chance bain't the right word for it, d'ye see. There's a Providence, lad, as sits up aloft,” said the captain, lifting his cap reverently. “I bain't, so to say, a religious cove; but, storm or calm, them's the wery identical words as I always writes in my log. An', d'ye mind me, lad, 'tis the hand o' the Good Pilot as has guided us here to-night.”
“I don't doubt it,” replied Don gravely, “any more than I doubt that the same Good Pilot will guide us safely into port. Bearing that in mind, we have only to mature our plans and end the whole thing at a stroke. Here we are, and now for the creek,” he concluded, crossing the platform and thrusting aside the pendent vines. “We'll borrow one of the canoes those niggers came in. Hullo, they're gone!”
“Some of the lubberly crew stopped aboard and rowed off agin, belike,” observed the captain. “Blow me, if we shan't have to take to the water, as the sailors said when they'd swallied all the rum.”
Don made no reply, but rapidly divesting himself of his coat and shoes, he slipped into the water before the old sailor well knew what he was about.
“I'm off for the canoe we hid in the jungle,” he called back as he struck out for the other shore.
“Ay, ay, lad!” responded the captain; “an' here's to your speedy retarn, as the shark says when they hoisted the sailor into the ship's gig.”
Swimming the creek was, after all, an insignificant feat for a sturdy-limbed young fellow like Don. The water was warm and refreshing, the distance far from great. A dozen vigorous strokes, and he was well within the deep shadow of the opposite cliff, for he deemed it prudent to avoid the moonlight, lest by any chance the natives who had removed the canoes should be in the vicinity.
Once, indeed, he fancied he actually heard a faint splashing in the water a short distance ahead. He floated for a moment, motionless and alert; but as the noise was not repeated, he swam on again. He had made scarce half-a-dozen strokes, however, when he suddenly felt himself gripped from below by the leg. His first thought was of sharks; his next, that he was in the clutches of a human foe, for a vice-like hand was at his throat.