Mivins, who had the ball before him at the moment, saw his own satellite, Davie, coming down towards him with vicious intentions. He quietly pushed the ball before him for a few yards, then kicked it far over the boy’s head, and followed it up like an antelope. Mivins depended for success on his almost superhuman activity. His tall, slight frame could not stand the shocks of his comrades, but no one could equal or come near to him in speed, and he was quite an adept at dodging a charge, and allowing his opponent to rush far past the ball by the force of his own momentum. Such a charge did Peter Grim make at him at this moment.
“Starboard hard!” yelled Davie Summers, as he observed his master’s danger.
“Starboard it is!” replied Mivins, and, leaping aside to avoid the shock, he allowed Grim to pass. Grim knew his man, however, and had held himself in hand, so that in a moment he pulled up and was following close on his heels.
“It’s an ill wind that blows no good,” cried one of the crew, towards whose foot the ball rolled, as he quietly kicked it into the centre of the mass of men. Grim and Mivins turned back, and for a time looked on at the general make that ensued. It seemed as though the ball must inevitably be crushed among them as they struggled and kicked hither and thither for five minutes, in their vain efforts to get a kick; and during those few exciting moments many tremendous kicks, aimed at the ball, took effect upon shins, and many shouts of glee terminated in yells of anguish.
“It can’t last much longer!” screamed the cook, his face streaming with perspiration, and beaming with glee, as he danced round the outside of the circle. “There it goes!”
As he spoke, the ball flew out of the circle, like a shell from a mortar. Unfortunately it went directly over Mizzle’s head. Before he could wink he went down before them, and the rushing mass of men passed over him like a mountain torrent over a blade of grass.
Meanwhile Mivins ran ahead of the others, and gave the ball a kick that nearly burst it and down it came exactly between O’Riley and Grim, who chanced to be far ahead of the others. Grim dashed at it. “Och! ye big villain,” muttered the Irishman to himself, as he put down his head and rushed against the carpenter like a battering-ram.
Big though he was, Grim staggered back from the impetuous shock, and O’Riley, following up his advantage, kicked the ball in a side direction, away from everyone except Buzzby, who happened to have been steering rather wildly over the field of ice. Buzzby, on being brought thus unexpectedly within reach of the ball, braced up his energies for a kick, but seeing O’Riley coming down towards him like a runaway locomotive, he pulled up, saying quietly to himself: “Ye may take it all yer own way, lad; I’m too old a bird to go for to make my carcass a buffer for a mad-cap like you to run agin.”
Jack Mivins, however, was troubled by no such qualms. He happened to be about the same distance from the ball as O’Riley, and ran like a deer to reach it first. A pool of water lay in his path, however, and the necessity of going round it enabled the Irishman to gain on him a little, so that it became evident that both would come up at the same moment and a collision be inevitable.
“Hold yer wind, Paddy,” shouted the men, who paused for a moment to watch the result of the race. “Mind your timbers, Mivins! Back your top-sails, O’Riley; mind how he yaws!”