"Don't fire, it is the hat and jacket of Willis!"
"What!" exclaimed Ernest, "is the Pilot a triton then, that he could
dispense with the canoe?"
"Well, yes, unless the canoe has found its way back of its own accord,
which would indeed make it an intelligent creature."
"The Pilot has evidently reached Shark's Island by swimming, in spite
of surf and breakers--a feat almost without a parallel."
"Bah!" said Ernest, parodying Jack's witticism about the oars, "what
does a pilot care about surf and breakers?"
Strongly moored in a creek of the Jackal River, and protected by a
bluff, forming a screen between it and the sea, the pinnace had in no
way suffered from the storm.
The swell was so violent, that they had a world of trouble in making
the island; as they approached, Willis, who had made a speaking-trumpet
by joining his hands round his mouth, was roaring out alternately,
"starboard," "larboard," "hard-a-port," just as if these terms had
not been Hebrew to the impromptu mariners.
At last, tired of holloaing, "Stop a bit," he said, "I shall find a
quicker way;" with that he threw himself directly into the sea, and
cut through the waves towards them as if his arms had been driven by a
steam engine.
Arrived on board, he gave a vigorous turn to the tiller, laid hold of
the sheet, let out a reef here, took in another there; the pinnace was
soon completely at his command, and behaved admirably; true, she
pitched furiously, and the gunwale was under water at every plunge.
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