beyed, and so cautiously that the next minute the cutter was
close alongside, and there lay the black crew, sleeping profoundly in
the hot sunshine, eyes tightly closed, mouths widely open, and quite a
crowd of busy flies flitting and buzzing overhead, settling upon the
sleepers in a way that would have proved maddening to ordinary people,
but which seemed to have not the slightest effect upon the negroes.

"Hook on, Tom," whispered Murray excitedly. "Take care they don't slip
away."

The big sailor picked up the boat-hook, and was in the act of reaching
out to take hold of the boat's bow, when one of the sleepers closed his
mouth, slowly opened it again in a wide yawn, and at the same time
unclosed his eyes, saw the big sailor reaching towards him, and then,
showing the whites of his eyes in a stare of horror and dismay, he
uttered a yell which awoke the rest of the crew, who sprang up as one
man, to follow their companion's example, for the first awakened as he
uttered his yell bounded out of the boat and disappeared.

"No, you don't, my black friend," cried Tom, making a thrust with the
boat-hook, and getting hold of the startled man by his waist-cloth, he
brought him up again, kicking, splashing and plunging to the surface,
and drew him hand over hand along the pole of the boat-hook till he had
him alongside the now rocking cutter, when a tremendous lurch freed him.
He would have got away but for the help rendered by the boat-keepers,
one of whom took hold of a leg, the other of a wrist, when he was hauled
in over the side, praying for mercy in very fair English, for the fact
that the big sailor planted a bare foot upon his chest and pressed him
down into the bottom of the cutter quite convinced him that his time had
come.

"Hold your row, you black pig!" growled Tom. "Think it's killing time
and you're going to be scalded and scraped?"

"Oh, massa! Oh, massa! Poor black niggah, sah!" wailed the shivering
captive.

"Be quiet, or--"

Tom May turned the boat-hook pole downwards as if he were going to
plunge it at the poor fellow, and his shouting came to an end.

"No use to go ashore after the rest, sir, eh?" said Tom enquiringly.

"Not the slightest," replied Murray, as the last of the crew reached the
fringing bamboos and plunged in, to disappear. "But don't let that one
go."

"No, sir; he's right enough. Better let him know that we're not going
to kill him, though."

"Be quiet, sir!" cried Murra