“Lift him in carefully,” said Lieutenant Fenton, as the boat's bows
touched the beach; “he seems pretty weak.”
“Thank you, sir!” and the prisoner turned his dark eyes upon the
officer. “I am nearly dropping. I got a hard hit in the chest with a
musket butt from one of your men, sir.”
A couple of men lifted him in, and then as soon as the rest of his
people had taken their places the lieutenant followed.
“Push off, Gates.”
As the heavy boat slid out from the shore into the still waters of
the lagoon, the lieutenant glanced down at the manacled figure of his
prisoner.
“Let him sit up, Adams, and take the irons off. He can't lie there like
a trussed fowl; and see if one of you can't stop that bleeding.”
Adams bent down, and unlocking the handcuffs lifted him up.
Then, quick as thought, Jim Swain, dashing him aside, sprang overboard
and dived towards the shore.
“Quick! Show a light,” said the officer, standing up in the stern,
pistol in hand, waiting for the man to rise.
A long narrow streak of light showed his figure not ten feet away from
the beach. In another minute he would touch the shore.
“Stop!” cried the officer. “Swim another yard and you are a dead man.”
But the half-caste kept steadily on. Again Fenton's warning cry rang
out, then he slowly raised his pistol and fired.
The shot told, for as the half-caste rose to his feet he staggered. And
then he sped up the steep beach towards the thick scrub beyond.
As he panted along with the blood streaming from a bullet wound in his
side, his sister's hand seized him by the arm.
“Jim, Jim!” she gasped, “only a little more, and we------”
And then half a dozen muskets flashed, and the two figures went down
together and lay motionless on the bloodied sand.
Fenton jumped ashore and looked at them. “Both dead,” he said,
pityingly, to old Swain, who with a number of natives now stood beside
him.
“Aye, sir,” said the trader, brokenly, “both. An' now let me be with my
dead.”
*****
But neither Ema nor Jim Swain died, though both were sorely wounded; and
a month later they with their father sailed away to Samoa.