Blueneck shrugged his shoulders and did not move.
Joe’s eyes began to sparkle and a dull flash suffused his neck and face.
“Do as I say,” he said quietly.
The fresh air and the rum had revived Blueneck and he began to feel angry again. Still he did not move. Joe seized an oar, holding it in both hands; he wielded it above his head; it was a clumsy weapon, however, and the boat rocked dangerously. Instinctively Blueneck drew back, and before he knew what he was doing raised himself to a sitting position on the gunwale; this was Joe’s opportunity, and he grasped it. Lowering the oar as swiftly as possible he hove it sharply into the Spaniard’s stomach, who immediately doubled up and fell backward into the water.
Joe crawled along the boat and looked over the side. Blueneck came up a little to the left and seized hold of the side; Joe pushed him off, and he sank again and tried to strike out for the shore, but his wind was gone and he floundered, gasping.
Joe looked at him critically.
“You won’t come near my wife no more,” he observed, as he threw the helpless man a line. “Oh, no, you can’t come in my boat dripping as ye are,” he said cheerily as the other, wild-eyed and half-drowned, clawed at the boat. “You hang on that there line and I’ll tow ye in,” Joe continued, and suiting the action to the word picked up both oars and struck out.
When at last the keel grated on the soft shingle, Joe got out and after first dropping his anchor looked round for Blueneck. The man lay still in the water, both hands tightly grasping the line, the ripple of the waves tossing him to and fro.
Joe dragged him in, threw him down on a bank of dry seaweed, and stood looking at him for a minute or two.
“Ah, I wonder if he be dead now,” he said to himself, and he bent down to lift the sailor’s eyelids. He tore open the wet remains of Blueneck’s best surcoat and put his hand in the left side.