With an angry shout, he sprang forward, rifle in hand, toward the midnight skulker.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, with an angry inflection in his voice.
Then, as the figure switched around, he added, leveling his rifle:
"Throw up your hands and don't dare to move. I've caught you at last."
But, to his surprise, instead of remaining still, the figure made a swift dash for him. Before he could make a move Nat, caught quite off his guard, for he had not dreamed of opposition, found the rifle whisked from his hands by a herculean grasp and hurled overside.
The next instant those mighty arms had encircled Nat himself.
The lad, despite his strength and activity, was a child in that grip of steel.
He felt himself helplessly snatched from his feet and the breath crushed out of his body.
This stifled his agonized cry for help.
In one dreadful flash of insight he saw that the creature which now held him was hairy, unclothed, and ferocious to a degree. But while he still perceived this subconsciously, struggling vainly to free himself, his captor made a rush for the rail of the schooner.