The appearance of the launch’s crew changed affairs at once, however. Armed with cutlasses, belaying pins and cudgels, they fell upon the negro and his animal companions and, after a brief but desperate combat, forced them to retreat.
The maniac fought his way forward. As he was being pursued he sprang upon the port bulwark and, with a wild, chattering cry, leaped overboard.
A rush was made to the side, but all that remained to reveal the fate of the negro were a few bubbles and a widening circle of ripples. He had gone to his death.
The two apes were writhing upon the deck in their last agony. As the men turned back, they expired.
Trolley and Joy quickly kneeled at the side of Clif. Their faces showed their grief and anxiety. A hasty examination brought a whoop of joy from the Jap.
“He live,” he shouted. “Hurray! he no dead. Get water. Clif no die yet. Whoop!”
Lieutenant Watson, bleeding and exhausted, bent over the unconscious lad, and, with the aid of a flask of whiskey, from the launch’s medicine chest, soon brought a sigh from Clif’s lips.
He came to with a start and a gasp of terror. The latter emotion was so real that it required considerable effort to soothe him. When he at last realized the true state of affairs, his relief was manifest.
“Trolley,” he said, tremulously, “I—I thought it was the other world, and I had taken the toboggan slide by mistake.”