Presently Graddy arose, and going into the head of the boat, took up the baling-dish and again drank deeply of the sea-water. “Ha! ha!” he laughed, tossing his arms wildly in the air, and gazing at Gaff with the glaring eyes of a maniac, “that’s the nectar for me. Come, boys, I’ll sing you a ditty.”
With that he burst into a roaring bacchanalian song, and continued to shout, and yell, and drink the brine until he was hoarse. But he did not seem to get exhausted; on the contrary, his eyes glared more and more brightly, and his face became scarlet as the fires that were raging within him increased in intensity.
Billy clung to his father, and looked at the captain in speechless horror. Even Gaff himself felt an overpowering sense of dread creep over him, for he now knew that he had to deal with a raving maniac. Not knowing what to do, he sat still and silent in the stern of the boat with the tiller in his hand, and his eyes fixed immovably on those of the madman, who seemed to feel that it was a trial as to which should stare the other down, for he soon gave up singing and drinking, and devoted all his energies of body and soul to glaring at his enemy.
Thus they continued until the sun began to set. Then Gaff’s heart sank within him, for he felt sure that, whenever it was too dark for each to see the other, the madman would summon up courage to make a sudden attack.
The attack, however, was precipitated by Gaff inadvertently glancing over his shoulder to observe how far the sun had yet to descend.
Instantly, with the leap of a panther, Graddy was upon him with both hands grasping tightly at his throat. Down, down, he pressed him, until Gaff lay on his back with his head over the gunwale. His strength now availed him nothing, for unnatural energy nerved the madman’s arm.
Billy sprang up and tried to disengage him from his grasp. As well might the rabbit try to unlock the boa’s deadly coil. Wrenching the tiller from his father’s grasp he hit the madman on the head with all his might; but the poor boy’s might was small. The blow seemed to have no effect at all. Again and again he brought it down in an agony of haste lest his father should be strangled before the other was felled. At last he hit him with all his force behind the ear, and Graddy’s grasp relaxed as he fell prone on the body of his insensible victim.
To pull him off and haul his father into a more convenient position was the work of a few seconds.
“O daddy, daddy, speak to me,” he cried, loosening his father’s neckcloth and unbuttoning his shirt. “Oh, quick! get better before he does,” cried Billy wildly, as he shook his father and laved water on his face; “oh! he’ll get well first and kill you.”
In order to do all that lay in his power to prevent this, Billy suddenly sprang up, and, seizing the tiller, dealt the prostrate Graddy several powerful blows on the head. It is not improbable that the frightened boy would have settled the question of his recovery then and there had not his father revived, and told him to stop.