“Ah, say, that isn’t fair!” complained Jack, not daring to look up or around.
“All’s fair in play!” laughed Anne from the bank.
A second rock landed on the edge of the raft, and then a mass of dirt and dead leaves. After this, the girls assisted in the fusillade, and the boys were not only kept busy avoiding the ammunition of the Americans; but they found the raft tilting so dangerously that another added bit of weight would roll the single remaining soap-box from the ship.
“Jack, it’s dare or die!” said George, nodding to the débris thrown on the raft and the slant of the ship under water.
“Jim’s the lightest—he must take the soap-box and try to reach shore with it while we fight them for a landing out here. If they go for Jim, we can land, and if they keep up with us Jim can scramble up the bank.”
Jim was willing, and Jack thought it was a fighting chance, so the captain of the _Dartmouth_ sidled off into the water and grabbed the box which he had to safely carry up on shore—in the face of the American cannonading.
Had the creek been clear of mud and roots, the British might have landed their sea forces, and thus the history of the American colonists might never have been written as such; but which one of the combating parties could dream of the unseen menace that took a part in this tragic fight?
The two girls and John saw Jim slide off and push the soap-box in front of him, but they felt a sympathy for him, for it was apparent that Jack and George preferred to remain on the raft and let Jim try to land. Then they would claim the right to fire three shots to one at the Americans.
But the three Americans determined to fire as many of the soft apples at the two remaining sailors as they could land, so Jack and George were kept busy ducking and objecting, and Jim had gone half the distance between the raft and the gnarled root, where he hoped to climb up, when a blood-curdling yell was heard, which seemed to rise from his very toes.
British and Yanks alike forgot their enmity and shouted out: “What’s happened, Jim?”
But the little pickaninny, beating the water frantically with both hands, while continuing to howl, tried to jump up from the water.
Jack and George, too wet to mind more water, and John, with the two girls on shore, rushed for the captain to try and save him, for they firmly believed he was about to yell his last earthly breath.