"Sit down and bale out your boat!" I called to them, as I put the Splash about to save Mr. Parasyte. "Keep cool and you are all right. Bale out your boat!"
"We have no dipper."
When my boat had come about, I ran her close to them, and tossed a small bucket to Pearl, with which he went to work to free his boat from water. The circumstances were by no means desperate, though Pearl was the only fellow among them who appeared to have any self-possession.
"Help! Help!" shouted Mr. Parasyte, more feebly than before.
"Go forward, Bob, with the boat-hook; and stand by, Tom, to help him. Let him get hold of the boat-hook."
I swept round in the Splash, till I threw her up into the wind with Mr. Parasyte under the bow. Bob Hale extended the boat-hook to him, which he promptly grasped, and with some difficulty we hauled him on board. It was a warm day in June, and I did not think him any the worse for the bath he had taken; but I was perfectly satisfied that he would have been drowned if we had left him to be rescued by Pearl and his party. We felt that we had done a good thing—that we had rendered good for evil.
For my own part, judging by what I should have felt in his situation, I expected some conciliatory proposition from him; and we waited, with no little interest and anxiety, till he had wiped his face and neck, and adjusted his damp linen as well as he could. He had the satisfaction of knowing that I, the rebel, who had resisted him, and whom he regarded as the author of all the mischief, had saved his life; and I am sure that it was a greater satisfaction to me than it was to him. I ran the Splash up towards the deserters, who were still employed in baling out their boat.
Mr. Parasyte spoke at last. Though I knew he was a tyrant, though I knew there was nothing that could be called noble in his nature, I did not expect what followed. I supposed there was some impressible spot in his heart which might have been reached through the act we had just done.
"So you meant to drown me—did you?" were the first words he said, and in a tone so uncompromising that we saw at once there was nothing to hope.
I looked at Bob Hale, and Bob looked at me. Our surprise was mutual; and as there was nothing that could be said, we said nothing.