wilder than most of the fellows who pass us. If that fool who is
steering her does not mind what he is about, Dick, he will either run
into that canoe coming down or else get across our chain. There, I told
you so."

The man at the tiller was in fact, looking, with mingled curiosity and
hostility, at the gunboat that he was passing but a few yards away, and
did not notice a canoe, manned by six rowers, that was coming down with
the stream, taking an oblique course across the bows of the Serpent, and
was indeed hidden from his view by the hull of the vessel, until he had
passed beyond her. Then there was a sudden shout and a yell from a dozen
throats, as the two canoes came into collision, the one proceeding up
the river being struck on the quarter with a force that almost cut her
in two, and in an instant her occupants were in the water. As the
Malays were to a man almost as much at home in the water as on land, the
accident would have had little effect beyond the loss of the boat and
its contents, had it not been that the stern of the other craft struck
the Malay chief with such force as to completely disable him, and he
would have sunk at once had not two of the boatmen grasped him and kept
his head above water.

"What has become of the child?" Harry Parkhurst exclaimed, and he and
Dick Balderson both leaped on to the rail, throwing off their jackets
as they shouted to the men to lower a boat. Nothing could be seen of
the child until, after half a minute's suspense, a little face suddenly
appeared in the swirl of the muddy water some fifteen yards from the
vessel's side. It was gone again in an instant, but, as it disappeared,
both lads sprang from the side and with a few strokes reached the spot
where they had seen the face disappear; then they dived under water and
soon grasped her. As soon as they came to the surface a sailor, who had
seized a coil of rope, flung it to them, and, grasping it, they were
quickly by the side of the gunboat.

A minute later some sailors, who had at once tumbled into a boat on the
alarm being given, came up. The child was first handed into it, then the
midshipmen scrambled in, and, by their directions, two of the sailors,
standing on the thwarts, lifted the child high above their heads to the
hands of the men leaning over the bulwark.

"Take the little thing to the doctor," Dick said. "Now, lads, row on;
let's pick up some of those Malay fellows."

A babel of shouts and sounds rose