"Man, my stomach's been crying for it ever since I set eyes on it. 'Sides, those deevils of birds will finish it in no time. See them! They're at it now. Och, ye greedy deevils!"
He clambered up the pile with his oar and laid about him lustily, The birds rose up from the meat like a dense cloud of flies, and screamed and raved at him, and swooped at him with vicious eyes and beaks and claws, so that in a moment he became the centre of a writhing, fluttering, shrieking mass which threatened to annihilate him completely.
He flailed blindly at them with his oar, smashing them by dozens. But they were too many for him. He shouted for help, and when Wulfrey scrambled up he found him in very sore case, fighting blindly and streaming with blood.
"Come away, man!" shouted Wulfrey, and thrashed away at the nightmare of whirling birds. "Come away before they end us!" and in a moment he found himself the centre of a similar shrieking mass, dazed and blinded with their numbers and their fury. The terrified glimpse he got of their cold glittering eyes and gnashing beaks, and the compressed venom of their overwhelming assault, were too much for him. It was like fighting single-handed against all the fiends out of the pit.
He hurled his oar overboard, put up his arms to protect his eyes, and staggered to the edge of the pile, acutely conscious of jags and pecks and rips innumerable on his bare arms and shoulders. As he flung himself down into the water and dived under, a plunge alongside told him that Macro had done the same. A raucous swarm of birds followed them, but on their disappearance fluttered off to more visible chances above.
"Man! but that was awful!" gasped the mate hoarsely. "They nigh ate me alive."
"Let's get aboard or they'll be at us again. There's my oar," and he swam quietly to it and they climbed back on to the raft.
"An' never ae piece o' pork," lamented Macro. "The poaching deevils!"
"Be thankful you're alive, man! It was a close touch that."
"'Twas that. I'm bit all over. I'd like to end 'em all with one crack."