“No, sir, but you told Berridge, Josh, the old man.”
“You lie, you infamous liar! What, _I_ publish abroad the secret that I have kept through thick and thin, till after forty years of acute mania I may right the wrong and establish the title. Oh, my God!” he broke forth shrilly, “am I raving now? Is this a species of hallucination, obsession,” he waved his wild hands toward sky, and woods, and sinister, silent river, “or, worse still, is it stern fact and have I betrayed my sacred trust at last?”
“He’ll turn this boat upside down,” the shanty-boater in a low voice warned the others.
“‘Liar’ is a toler’ble stiff word for me to have to take off ’n you, Mister,” said Binnhart, with affected gruffness, for his affiliations with the truth were not so close as to cause him to actually resent an accusation of divagation. “It ain’t my fault if you got absent-minded an’ told Berridge that the vallybles are hid in a pillar or a pilaster,” he broke off abruptly.
A shrill scream rent the air. It seemed for one moment as if Captain Treherne himself had made a discovery, so elated were his eyes, so triumphant was his face, changed almost out of recognition in the moment. Agitated as he was he had lost his balance and was swaying to and fro as if he might pitch head-foremost into the river.
“If you don’t want the whole water-side popilation rowing out here to see what’s the matter aboard you had better make him stop that n’ise,” the shanty-boater urged. “Gag him. Take his handhercher, or his hat,” he recommended, still swiftly rowing.
The dull, purplish twilight of the slow-coming day gave little token of stir amongst the few scattered inhabitants of the riverside within earshot; cottonpickers are never in the field till the sun has dried the dew from the plant, but Jorrocks was mindful of the fact that there are barnyard duties in an agricultural community requiring early rising; cows are to be milked, horses fed and watered, and any bucolic errand might bring to the bank an inquisitive interest in these weird cries ringing from shore to shore in an intensity of agonized emotion. The suggestion of Jorrocks was acted upon instantly. Binnhart roughly knocked the hat from Captain Treherne’s head, crushed it into a stiff, shapeless mass, thrust it between his jaws, attempting to secure it with his large linen handkerchief, despite his strenuous resistance. The struggle was fierce, and the miscreants were dismayed by the strength the victim put forth. The two could scarcely hold him; over and again he shook off both Binnhart and Connover. The shanty-boater had great ado even with his practiced skill to keep the skiff from overturning altogether, as it listed from side to side as the weight of the combatants shifted. The stranger fought with a sort of frenzy, striking, kicking, butting with his head, even biting with his strong snapping jaws.