“Lie to, Snowball!” cried several of his old comrades. “Why have you cut your cable in that fashion? Hold on till we come up. We mean you no harm!”
Snowball did hold on; though not in the sense that his former associates desired. On the contrary, their request only stimulated him to fresh exertions, to avoid the renewal of an acquaintance which he knew would certainly end in his ruin.
The Coromantee was not to be cajoled. With Ben Brace by his side, muttering wholesome counsel, he lent a deaf ear to the proposal of the pursuers; and only answered it by pulling more energetically at his oar.
What had been only a request, now became a demand,—accompanied by threats and protestation. Snowball was menaced with the most dire vengeance; and told of terrible punishments that awaited him on his capture.
Their threats had no more influence than their solicitations; and they who had given utterance to them arriving after a time, at this conviction, ceased talking altogether.
Snowball’s silent, though evidently determined, rejection of their demands had the effect of irritating those who had made them; and stimulated by their spite with more energy than ever did they bend themselves to the task of overtaking the fugitive craft.
Two hundred yards still lay between pursuer and pursued. Two hundred yards of clear, unobstructed ocean. Was that distance to become diminished, to the capture of the Catamaran; or was it to be increased, to her escape?