"What do you think of that for a scrape?" asked Jim. "Talk about it raining pitchforks, why, it rained arrows and hailed rocks. I know now something how it would be to be under fire in battle. But this was fun."
"You were certainly under fire if I'm a judge," commented Tom.
"It's a wonder you weren't struck, Jim," I said.
"It seemed like a miracle to me," he replied. "Why, two big rocks just grazed me and an arrow struck right between my feet and I don't know how many swished by me. They simply made a pincushion of the water around me."
"I'm the real hero," grinned Tom, sarcastically, "because I got wounded. It was a hard bump too."
"It's lucky that you had a roof over you," I remarked.
"You were just as lucky," he retorted.
"All hands and the cook repair ship," commanded Jim. "We might just as well get the surplus stones overboard. We don't need so much ballast."
There must have been eight stones of various sizes, but mostly round. The largest was about eight inches in diameter. The eight pounder, Jim called it.
"It made the old boat shiver when that landed," remarked Jim. "It's the only one that broke the deck."