"
"Well, massa, you know best."
So we tugged at the sable heroine, and first one leg came home out of
the tenacious clay, with a plop, then the other was drawn out of the
quagmire. We then relieved her of the paddles, and each taking hold of
one of the poor half--dead creature's hands, we succeeded in getting
down to the beach, about half a mile to leeward of the entrance to the
cove. We found the canoe there, plumped Nancy stem foremost into the
bottom of it for ballast, gathered all our remaining energies for a
grand shove, and ran her like lightning into the surf, till the water
flashed over and over us, reaching to our necks. Next moment we were
both swimming, and the canoe, although full of water, beyond the surf,
rising and falling on the long swell. We scrambled on board, set Nancy
to bale with Peter's hat, seized our paddles, and skulled away like fury
for ten minutes right out to sea, without looking once about us, until a
musket--shot whistled over our heads, then another, and a third; and I
had just time to hold up a white handkerchief, to prevent a whole
platoon being let drive at us from the deck of his Britannic Majesty's
schooner Gleam, lying--to about a cable's length to windward of us, with
the Firebrand a mile astern of her out at sea. In five minutes we got
on board of the former.
"Mercy on me, Tom Cringle, and is this the way we are to meet again?"
said old Dick Gasket, as he held out his large, bony, sunburnt hand to
me.
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