“Now, pull in, you ninny! If you don’t mind when your betters speak to you, I’ll put one of these bullets into you.”
“Do you mean to kill me, Waddie?” I asked.
“No, not if you mind what I say to you.”
“But I tell you my father is waiting for me at the steamboat wharf.”
“No matter if he is; he’s paid for waiting when I want you. Why don’t you pull in?”
I don’t know exactly why I did not pull in. He threatened to shoot me, on the one hand, if I didn’t pull in, and I felt as though something would happen, on the other hand, if I did pull in. It was not improbable to me, just then, that the young scion had planted a torpedo in the ground, which was to be touched off by pulling the string, and which was to send me flying up into the air. I would have given something handsome, at that moment, for ten rods of space between me and the imperative young scion at my side.
“Why don’t you pull?” yelled he, out of patience with me at last.
Springing forward, he grasped the string which I then held in my hand, and gave it a smart jerk, at the same time pointing the revolver at my head, as if to prevent my sudden departure. The pulling of the kite-string more than realized my expectations. The very earth was shaken beneath me, and the lake trembled under the shock that followed. High in air, from the pier, a dozen rods distant, rose, in ten thousand fragments, the canal boat of the honest skipper. By some trickery, which I could not understand, the gaily-painted craft had been blown up by the pulling of that kite-string.
I could not see through it; in fact, I was so utterly confounded by the noise, smoke, and dust of the explosion, that I did not try to see through it. I was amazed and confused, bewildered and paralyzed. The fragments of the boat had been scattered in a shower upon us, but none of them were large enough to do us any serious injury.
My first thought was a sentiment of admiration at the diabolical ingenuity of Mr. Waddie. It was clear enough now that this was the revenge of the young gentleman upon the skipper for the punishment he had inflicted upon him. By some contrivance, not yet explained, the young reprobate had ignited a quantity of powder, placed in the hold of the boat, with the kite-line. The honest skipper seemed to be the victim now.