"Push her along, lads! Now's our time!" Then, bringing the paddle to his shoulder as if it had been a musket, he shouted, "Drop that oar mighty quick, Macomber, or I'll fire!"
The traitor, thus receiving the first intimation that an enemy was near at hand, glanced backward quickly, and, seeing the supposed weapon leveled full at him, threw down his paddle with an exclamation of mingled fear and anger.
We shot up alongside him like an arrow from the bow, all hands of us reaching out to grasp the gunwale of his canoe, and as we thus made fast Darius grasped the fellow by the throat.
"You may as well give in quietly," the old man said, tightening his grasp until it would have been impossible for the man to make the lightest outcry. "If you flounder about much all hands will go into the water, an' once there I give my word that you won't come to the surface, for we don't count on losin' you the second time."
The scoundrel was as meek as any lamb, and when Darius told me to fasten his arms together with my belt, he held them out obediently.
I took a double turn around his elbows, and Darius ordered him to step into our canoe, which he did without hesitation, but once there, seated on the flooring of the boat with his back against the old man's knees, he glowered at us like an angry cat.
"We reckoned you wanted to see Barney's fleet, when you put off from Benedict, an' it ain't jest right to make you paddle a heavy canoe so far," Darius said grimly. "You're goin' back with us, Master Macomber, an' this time you'll stay."
"Not very long," the reptile said with a snarl. "Admiral Cochrane declares that he'll destroy Barney's fleet Friday, an' dine in Washington Sunday. So you see I'm not likely to stay with you any great while after the British come up the river."
"That is as may be; now I'm countin' that when your admiral gets as far up the river as Nottingham, if he ever does, you'll be somewhere else, for we've taken you in charge."
"My time will come, an' then I'll pay off a good many old scores," Macomber cried with a look on his face which was not pleasant to see.