“Heavens, Farnesworth! I must be crazy—helping the red demon on the boat to slay me,” he cried; “’tis well you came; I was so excited that I did not know what I was doing.”
There was a strange light in the ranger’s eyes, and a strange intonation in his voice.
Town. regarded him for a moment with suspicion, and he had it in his mind to accuse him of being a traitor, when his thoughts were drawn away by the desperate struggling going on in the hold below.
Town. would have rushed down to assist his old friend, had he not been afraid of assisting the wrong one, in the darkness that prevailed therein. He could do nothing but wait and listen, and hope for the best. He could hear them rolling and struggling in the water; he could hear their heavy, labored breathing, and the dull thud and crash of their fists—even feel the vibratory shock of each blow, and the dull thumping of their bodies against the under side of the deck.
Now and then all would become quiet and still, as though no life was there below.
Town. felt a chill of terror creep over him, as he thought that the savage may have slain his friend, and was then creeping with the silence of a shadow toward the hatchway, to leap out and murder him. He was relieved of these fears, however, when the struggling, pounding and groaning would begin again with renewed vigor.
The dipping of the canoe showed that the combatants were first upon one side and then the other. A hollow moan now and then came from the dark pit, followed by a gurgling shriek or strangling cry.
To Town. it sounded like the struggling of two demons away down in the bowels of the earth.
For fully half an hour the struggling continued, then all became hushed in a death-like silence—the conflict had ended.
Town. and Rollo held their breath in anxious suspense, and listened.