So shouted the Rangers; and when young Jabe started to report to his father the state of affairs in the hold, they all sprang after him, determined to present their side of the question, and utterly forgetting that they had just decided to keep out of the skipper's sight for a time at least.
The sloop was running dead before a light breeze, with its big mainsail away out on the starboard side, and Captain Crotty was just then doing some very fine steering in trying to clear a sharp bend in the river without gybing. The sudden rush of young Jabe and the excited boys, all shouting at the top of their voices, and bearing down on him with frantic gestures, so startled the skipper that for a single moment his attention was drawn away from the big sail.
"They're stealing the compass!"
"He won't give us the bells!"
As the opposing factions uttered these cries there came a mighty sweep of something over their heads. The next moment young Jabe and Cracker Bob Jones were overboard and struggling in the river, the skipper, Will Rogers, and several more of the Rangers were flung to the deck, and the sloop, left to her own devices, was rounding into the wind with such a slatting of sails, sheets, and blocks, as caused those boys who were still below to imagine that she had been struck by a cyclone. The mainsail had gybed over, and though the boom was, fortunately, so lifted, that it cleared the heads of those who stood on deck, the sheet had tripped them, and flung two of the number overboard.
CAL MOODY'S MERMAID.
Mercifully no one was injured by the mishap; and as the vessel lost her headway, the two who were overboard managed to clamber into the small boat towing astern. They had hardly gained this place of safety when Cracker Bob again sprang into the water after his beribboned straw hat which was jauntily floating away. Glad as he was to recover this bit of property, he was heavy-hearted at the loss of his highly prized patent-leather pumps, which had been kicked off and lost in his first plunge.
By the time these two had clambered aboard, with river water running from them in streams, the others had regained their feet, and were examining their bruises, while the skipper, after assuring himself that no serious damage was done, was jamming the helm hard down, and getting the sloop once more on her course. He did not utter a word until this was accomplished, when, with a mournful shake of his head, he exclaimed, "And this is only the beginning of the cruise!"
Then, as though remembering that authority must be maintained at all hazards, he sung out: