While she clung
thus to her work, blinded by the spray, and expecting death, she heard
oars splash into the water, and mellow stentorian voices burst out
singing.
In amazement she turned, squeezed the brine out of her eyes, and
looked all round, and lo! the boat was in a trifling bobble of a sea,
and close astern was the surge of fire raging, and growling, and
blazing in vain, and the two sailors were pulling the boat, with
superhuman strength and inspiration, into a monster mill-pool that now
lay right ahead, black as ink and smooth as oil, singing loudly as
they rowed:
"Cheerily oh oh! (pull) cheerily oh oh! (pull)
To port we go oh (pull), to port we go (pull)."
FLARE!! a great flaming eye opened on them in the center of the
universal blackness.
"Look! look!" cried Lucy; "a fire in the mountain."
It was the lantern of a French sloop anchored close to the shore. The
crew had heard the sailors' voices. At sight of it David and Jack
cheered so lustily that Talboys crawled out of the water and glared
vaguely. The sailors pulled under the sloop's lee quarter: a couple of
ropes were instantly lowered, the lantern held aloft, ruby heads and
hands clustered at the gangway, and in another minute the boat's party
were all upon deck, under a hailstorm of French, and the boat fast to
her stern.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE skipper of the ship, hearing a commotion on deck, came up, and,
taking off his cap, made Lucy a bow in a style remote from an English
sailor's.
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