A yell of vengeance peals from the pursuing party; and, maddened, they rush on. They will be too late! Already the pirates have reached the boat, now undefended; and all four together, swarming over the gunwale, drop down upon the thwarts, each as he does so seizing hold of an oar, and shipping it.
In agony, Crozier cries out—
“O God! are they to get away—these guilty, redhanded wretches?”
It would seem so. They have already dipped their oar-blades into the water, and commenced pulling, while they are beyond pistol-range.
Ha! something stays them! God is not for them. Their arms rise and fall, but the boat moves not! Her keel is on a coral bottom; her bilge caught upon its rough projections. Their own weight pressing down, holds her fast, and their oar-strokes are idly spent!
They had not thought of being thus stayed; though it proves the turning-point of their fate.
No use their leaping out now, to lighten the boat; no time for that, nor any chance to escape. But two alternatives stare them in the face—resistance, which means death; surrender, that seems the same.
De Lara would resist and die; so also Rocas. But the other two are against it, instinctively holding on to whatever hope of life be left them.
The craven Calderon cuts short the uncertainty by rising erect, stretching forth his arms, and crying out in a piteous appeal for mercy.
In an instant after they are surrounded, the boat grasped by the gunwale, and dragged back to the shore. Crozier with difficulty restrains the angry gold-diggers from shooting them down on the thwarts. Well for them the coxswain has not been killed, but only wounded, and in no danger of losing his life. Were it otherwise, theirs would be taken on the spot.