“Ofer mit dis boat. Quick now, and row aboardt dot schooner, und ask him to take you home. Der rest,” he shouted with a look fore and aft, “keeps hid till I give der signal.”
The bustle of the burly fellow was so heavy and eager, so much of elbow, knee, and thrust went to the launching of that boat, that the two miserable Spaniards were swept into the job as a man is hurried along by a crowd. They scarce knew what they were to do even while they were doing it; and then in a minute it was done, the boat alongside, and Bol bundling both the Spaniards into her through the open gangway.
“In you shoomps! Dot vhas der vhay! Quick! If dot schooner vhas missed your life vhas not vorth der shirt on your pack. Oop mit dem oars, Antonio, und shove off. Avays you goes, mit our respects und vill der captain restore you to your friendts!”
I went to the side. On seeing me Antonio who, with an oar in his hand, stood up in the boat looking along the line of the brig’s rail with a wild, pale face, cried out in his incommunicable English:
“Señor Fielding, do not let Mr. Bol go away until he sees that the schooner will receive us. We have but these oars” he cried passionately, “no water, no provisions.”
“Pull for her—she’ll take you,” I cried.
“Roundt mit der topsail,” thundered Bol.
The seamen sprang to the braces, and in a very few moments had filled on the brig’s canvas. The vessel sat light on the water and quickly felt the impulse of her sails. The boat containing Antonio and Jorge slipped astern; the two wretches were not even then rowing; but the moment the brig got way one of them—it was Jorge, I think—yelled out like a woman; they threw their oars out and hysterically splashed the little tub of a boat toward the schooner.
There was no sea to hurt them. The swell ran firm and wide, rippling only to the brushing of the wind. I dreaded lest the schooner, on beholding our sudden show of men, should suspect—what with our visible brass pieces and the suggestive sheer of our hull—a piratic device, and make off. If that happened the Spaniards were lost; Bol certainly would not return to pick them up. The mere fancy of our leaving them out in this vast sea to horribly perish worked in me like ice in the blood, and as I watched I was all the while thinking, “What shall I do to save them if yonder schooner fills in a fright?”
But the schooner did not fill; that her people were amazed by our behavior I could not question, but they did not offer to run away. Possibly they thought we were executing some maneuver, and would shift our helm presently for the boat we had dispatched to them.