CHAPTER X.
THE BATTLE NEAR GARDEN ISLAND.
Oscar Chester had disappeared a second time, and most of the boys in the boat were paralyzed with terror. Dory saw him as he rose, and knew just where he was. The Goldwing worked lively in that breeze. The skipper handled his sheets with extraordinary celerity. Going free, the schooner dashed down to the spot, and reached it just as the victim of his own folly rose again to the surface.
Dory saw him just as the bow of the Goldwing was about to strike his head. Keeping her off a little, he leaned over the side, and grasped the drowning bully by the hair of the head, though not till he had put the helm hard down.
It was but a meagre hold that he had upon the sufferer, but he clung to him till the boat came up into the wind. Oscar had not lost his senses, though his mouth was too full of water to permit any utterance, if he had any thing to say. Dory
held on, though the aimless struggles of the victim rendered it very difficult for him to do so.
“Grab him by the collar!” shouted Dory to the next fellow in the boat. Lew Shoreham, who was the largest boy in the crowd, obeyed the order; though it was a difficult matter for an inexperienced hand to do any thing while the boat was flopping about in the heavy sea. But Lew got hold with one hand, and Dory shifted his grasp from the hair to the collar.
After a lively struggle, with the assistance of two other boys, they succeeded in hauling Oscar into the boat. He was exhausted by his struggles in the water, and he dropped upon the floor of the standing-room as limpsy as a wet rag. Dory gave no further attention to him, but grasped the helm, and soon got the Goldwing upon her course again, so that she was steady.
“Turn him over on his stomach, and let the water run out of him,” said the skipper. “Here, Bolly! Come aft! You can stand up in a boat.”
