While the occupants of the boat still slept, the moonlight paled before the rosy dawn of a new day, and at last a mischievous beam from the round red sun, just peeping over the eastern hills, found its way into the little cabin and shone full across Arthur’s eyes. In a moment the boy was wide-awake, and gazing upon his strange surroundings with the utmost bewilderment. He heard no sound, perceived no motion, and had not the faintest idea that he was on a boat. He only wondered whose this strange house was, where it was, and what had become of Uncle Phin, of whom he could see no sign.
He almost expected to hear his Aunt Nancy’s harsh voice calling him. Then the events of the preceding night came slowly back to him; and, with a thrill of joy he remembered that he was far from her dreaded presence, and had actually started on a journey toward his own dear mother’s beautiful home.
But he must get up and find out where he was, and what had become of Brace Barlow and Uncle Phin. At the very moment he stepped from his straw-filled bunk there came a crash and a shock that flung him to the floor. At the same instant he heard a frightened cry and a loud splash. Regaining his feet he sprang to one of the open doors and looking out saw nobody. Then he ran to the other, with the same result. He was evidently alone on some sort of a boat, which at that moment was drifting beneath a great iron bridge.
CHAPTER XI.
UNCLE PHIN’S DANGER.
For a moment poor Arthur, who knew nothing of boats and had never been on one before unless it was a New York ferry-boat, stood irresolute and frightened, without the slightest idea of what had happened or what he ought to do. The cry that he heard had not sounded a bit like Uncle Phin’s voice, and if it was his what had become of him? He was not on the boat, nor, so far as Arthur could discover, was he in the water. Upon seeing the bridge overhead the boy readily comprehended that the shock which had flung him to the floor was caused by the boat drifting against one of its great stone piers; but this did not explain Uncle Phin’s disappearance.
In his fear and distress of mind he began to call wildly: “Uncle Phin! Oh, dear Uncle Phin! where are you?”
“Hyar I is, Honey,” came a feeble voice from the other end of the boat, and Arthur sprang joyfully in that direction.
As the boat had swung around on striking the bridge pier, its after end now pointed down stream, and Arthur had been standing at the bow, gazing back on the place where he was afraid Uncle Phin had been left. Now, as he reached the other end of the boat, he saw the old man’s white head and black face, just on the surface of the water, but a short distance from where he stood. He seemed to be sitting astride of some object, to which he clung desperately. Every now and then it would sink, and poor Uncle Phin would disappear completely, only to re-appear a moment later, spluttering, choking, and exhibiting every sign of the utmost terror.
For a moment Arthur did not in the least comprehend the situation, and could not imagine what it was to which Uncle Phin was clinging. When it suddenly occurred to him that it was the long steering sweep, the other end of which projected above his head over the roof of the cabin, his first impulse, and the one on which he acted, was to spring to this inboard end and throw his weight upon it, with the idea of lifting the old negro clear of the water. As the steering sweep was a very nicely balanced see-saw, and as Uncle Phin’s body in the water, weighed less than Arthur’s out of it, the boy’s effort was crowned with a complete success, though its result was not exactly what he had anticipated.
To be sure, as Arthur flung himself upon one end of the long pole, the old man, astride the bit of plank fastened to its other end, was lifted into the air. It was, however, so suddenly and unexpectedly, that he lost his balance, toppled over, and again disappeared headforemost beneath the water. At the same time the boy, at the inner end of the see-saw, was bumped down on the cabin roof. Then Uncle Phin’s end again descended into the water, just in time for the old man to grasp it as he came to the surface.