CHAPTER V.
IN WHICH ERNEST DECLINES A PROPOSITION.
The battle had been fought and lost to me. Mr. Parasyte, roused to the highest pitch of anger and excitement, seemed to be determined to overwhelm me. He was reckless and desperate. He had smashed my boat apparently with as little compunction as he would snap a dead stick in his fingers. He was thoroughly in earnest now; and it was fully demonstrated that he intended to protect the discipline of the Parkville Liberal Institute, even if it cost a human life for him to do so.
I was then "lying round loose" in the lake. I had no idea that I was in any personal peril from the water; all that disturbed me was the fact that I could not swim fast enough to keep out of the principal's way. The treacherous breeze had deserted me in the midst of my triumph, and consigned me to the tender mercies of my persecutor.
I swam away from the boat which had been pursuing me, as though from an instinct which prompted me to escape my oppressor; but Mr. Parasyte, without giving any attention to my sinking craft, ordered his men to pull again; and he steered towards me. Of course a few strokes enabled him to overtake me. If I had had the means, I would have resisted even then, and avoided capture; for I could easily have swum ashore. But it would have been childish for me to hold out any longer; and when one of the men held out his oar to me, I grasped it, and was assisted into the boat.
"Are you satisfied, Thornton?" said Mr. Parasyte, with a sneer, as I shook myself like a water dog, and took my seat in the boat.
"No, sir; I am not satisfied," I replied.
"What are you going to do about it?"