“Overboard wi’ them all!” shouted one of the men.
There were some among these villains who, having once given the reins to their rage, were capable of anything. These, ready to act on the diabolical suggestion, attempted to drag Zeppa and the captain up the companion ladder, but their great size and weight rendered the effort difficult. Besides, Zeppa’s consciousness was returning, and he struggled powerfully. It was otherwise with poor Orlando. One of the ruffians easily raised the lad’s light frame and bore him to the deck. Next moment a sharp cry and splash were heard. Zeppa understood it, for he had seen his son carried away. With a wild shout he burst from those who held him, and would certainly have gained the deck and leaped overboard had not a mutineer from behind felled him a second time.
When Rosco heard what had been done he ran furiously on deck, but one glance at the dark sea, as the schooner rushed swiftly over it sufficed to show him that the poor boy’s case was hopeless.
But Orley’s case was not as hopeless as it seemed. The plunge revived him. Accustomed to swim for hours at a time in these warm waters, he found no difficulty in supporting himself. Of course his progress was aimless, for he could not see any distance around him, but a friend had been raised up for him in that desperate hour. At the moment he had been tossed overboard, a sailor, with a touch of pity left in his breast had seized a life-buoy and thrown it after him. Orlando, after swimming about for a few minutes, struck against this buoy by chance—if we may venture to use that word in the circumstances.
Seizing the life-preserver with an earnest “thank God” in his heart if not on his lips, he clung to it and looked anxiously around.
The sight was sufficiently appalling. Thick darkness still brooded on the deep, and nothing was visible save, now and then, the crest of a breaking wave as it passed close to him, or, rolling under him, deluged his face with spray.
Chapter Two.
When Antonio Zeppa recovered consciousness, he found himself lying on a mattress in the schooner’s hold, bound, bleeding, and with a dull and dreadful sense of pain at his breast, which at first he could not account for. Ere long the sudden plash of a wave on the vessel’s side recalled his mind to his bereavement; and a cry—loud, long, and terrible—arose from the vessel’s hold, which caused even the stoutest and most reckless heart on board to quail.