“The boom,—the boom! ’Tis coming round! Look out, Lalee! look out!”
As he gave utterance to these words of warnings the boy sprang towards his companion, with arms outstretched, to protect her.
The action came too late. The steering-oar, held in the hands of the sleeper, hung suspended high above the water. The Catamaran, left without control, luffed suddenly round beam-end to the wind; the boom obeyed the impulse of the breeze; and Lilly Lalee, uplifted upon its end, was brushed off from the craft, and jerked far out upon the blue bosom of the ocean!
Chapter Twenty Eight.
“Overboard!”
The cry came from little William, as the Portuguese girl, lifted on the end of the boom, was pitched far out into the sea.
The utterance was merely mechanical; and as it escaped from his lips, the sailor-lad rushed towards the edge of the raft, and placed himself in an attitude to plunge into the water,—with the design of swimming to the rescue of Lalee.
Just then the boom, suddenly recoiling, came back with a rapid sweep; and, striking him across the shins, sent him sprawling over the shoulders of Ben Brace, and right into the sea-chest, in front of which the sailor was still kneeling.