Part 29 (1/2)

”I know you did. I am sorry to intrude, but I must. If you will land Miss Collingsby, I will relieve you of my company.”

”I will not land Miss Collingsby. Now get out of this boat!” he added, taking up one of the oars.

”You must excuse me.”

”I'll excuse you,” cried he, rus.h.i.+ng upon me with the oar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHIL FIGHTS WITH BEN WATERFORD. Page 217.]

I defended myself with the boat-hook, and being the cooler of the two, I did so with tolerable success. He struck and thrust furiously with his weapon, till he was out of breath; and I was also, besides having had two or three hard raps on the head and arms with his weapon. A desperate lunge knocked me over backwards, and I fell over the bow of the boat upon the beach. I felt that I was defeated, and that I had promised Miss Collingsby more than I had thus far been able to perform.

With this advantage over me, Mr. Waterford pushed me back with the oar, and then endeavored to shove off the tender.

My catastrophe seemed to have defeated all my good intentions; and as I went over, I heard Miss Collingsby utter a shrill scream, as though she were the sufferer, instead of myself, as, indeed, she was likely to be.

CHAPTER XIX.

IN WHICH PHIL PROFITS BY CIRc.u.mSTANCES, AND WEIGHS ANCHOR IN THE MARIAN.

More than once in my eventful career I have realized that neither success nor defeat is what it appears to be. While Mr. Ben Waterford was congratulating himself upon the victory he had apparently achieved, and I was mourning over the defeat involved in my catastrophe, neither of us had foreseen the end. Miss Collingsby appeared to be the greatest sufferer; and the scream with which she announced my defeat was only the echo of my own feelings. As the battle was really her own, rather than mine, of course my misfortune was the greater catastrophe to her.

I lay upon my back on the ground, just as I had tumbled over the bow of the tender. But I did not lie there any great length of time--perhaps not the hundredth part of a second. But there are times when one can think of a great deal in the hundredth part of a second; and I am sure my thoughts were very busy during that infinitesimal period. My reflections were not selfish, and it did not occur to me that Mr.

Whippleton was escaping from me and from the wrath to come--only that my fair cousin would be at the mercy of my conqueror.

This was the pungent regret of the moment; and it seemed to me that I ought not to stay conquered. I had left my coat on board of the yacht in order to be able to swim if occasion should require; and I voted unanimously that the occasion did require that I should take a muddy bath in the service of the young lady. My first care was to get up. In doing so, I felt the painter of the boat under me. It seemed to have been left there when the tender was pushed into the water to suggest my next step. It did suggest it, and I hastened to profit by the advantage.

As I began to get up, Mr. Ben Waterford began to push off the boat; and I had just time to seize the rope before it was dragged into the water.

I picked it up, and promptly checked the operations of the angry skipper. I checked them rather suddenly. Mr. Waterford was at the stern of the boat; and as he raised his oar to give it another push, I gathered up all my strength, and made a desperate twitch at the rope.

As every one knows who has had anything to do with them, boats are wretchedly unsteady to a person in a standing position. Even an old sailor may find it impossible to maintain his perpendicularity when the boat is unexpectedly moved. Philosophically, the inertia of the man should be gradually overcome, and suddenly overcoming the inertia of the boat, as practice and the formula have both demonstrated, does not overcome that of the man. If he be not prepared for the change from rest to motion, he is in very great danger of being thrown down, and if near the water, of being thrown into it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TABLES TURNED--PHIL THE VICTOR. Page 221.]

The body of Mr. Ben Waterford was not proof against the law of nature.

It followed the rule deduced by practical men from the phenomena of every-day experience, and the formula laid down by those learned in physics. When I twitched the rope, I suddenly and violently overcame the inertia of the tender. Though without any malice on my part, the inertia of Mr. Ben Waterford was not overcome at the same time. His tendency was to remain at rest, and the consequence was, that I pulled the boat out from under him. Furthermore, as there was water where the boat had been when I pulled, because two bodies cannot occupy the same s.p.a.ce at the same time, the body of Mr. Waterford went into the water--the muddy, dirty water of the lagoon--stirred up by the oar with which he had pushed off the tender.

Divested of the language of science, the fact was, that Mr. Ben Waterford had tumbled over backward into the creek. In substance, he had repeated the experiment at the stern of the boat which I had tried at the bow, only he had fallen into the water, and I had fallen upon the land. In spite of preferences for the water, I must acknowledge that the land is a pleasanter element to fall upon than the water, especially if the water is dirty, for a gentleman instinctively abhors filth.

I protest that I had not intended to pitch Mr. Ben Waterford into the lagoon. Although I was familiar with the law of physics applicable to his case, I could not foresee what measure of resistance he would offer to the action of the formula, or what degree of caution he would use.

Without any premeditation on my part,--for I solemnly declare that I only intended to prevent him from pus.h.i.+ng off the tender,--it was an accomplished fact that Mr. Ben Waterford was floundering in the muddy water of the lagoon, while the tender was absolutely in my possession.

I could not quarrel with fate, destiny, good fortune, or whatever it was that had turned the tide in my favor at the very moment of defeat; and I made haste to profit by the circ.u.mstances as I found them. I ran along the bank of the creek, dragging the boat after me; and by the time the unhappy skipper had elevated his head above the surface of the foul pool, now rendered doubly foul by his own movements upon the soft bottom, I had the tender a couple of rods from him. He was in no danger of drowning; for while I should say that he was sunk half way up to his knees in the mud, the tiny wavelets rippled against the gold vest chain to which his watch was attached. In other words, the water was not quite up to his armpits. I do not know whether Mr. Waterford was able to swim or not: I never saw him swim, and he did not swim on this momentous occasion. He simply stood up in the water, rubbing the muddy fluid out of his eyes. He had not yet sufficiently recovered from the shock of his fall, and the muddy blindness which surrounded him, to realize the nature of the situation.

At a safe distance from his convulsive clutch, I jumped into the tender, and paddled rapidly to the yacht. I gave Mr. Waterford a wide berth, and left him trying to obtain a better vision of the surroundings. I leaped upon the deck of the Marian, and fastened the painter of the tender at the taffrail. Miss Collingsby spoke to me, but I heeded not what she said, and sprang forward as fast as I could move my steps. I hauled up the anchor, but without waiting to wash off the mud, or stow the cable, I hastened to the helm. Letting out the sheet, I ”wore s.h.i.+p,” and in half a minute the Marian was standing out of the lagoon.

”Stop! What are you about!” shouted Mr. Ben Waterford, who was paddling through the mud towards the sh.o.r.e.