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Page 17
The suggestion of the corporal was at once acted upon,
but it was not, until after repeated attempts had been
made to liberate the arms, from their Web-like canopy,
that two were finally brought up and placed in the boat.
The third they groped for in vain, until at length, the
men, dispirited and tired, declared it was utterly useless
to prosecute the search, and that the other musket must
be given up as lost.
This, however, did not suit the views of the correct
corporal. He said, pointedly, that he would almost as
soon return without his head as without his arms, and
that the day having been thus far spent without the
accomplishment of the object for which they were there,
he was determined to devote the remainder to the search.
Not being a bad diver himself, although he had not hitherto
deemed it necessary to add his exertions to those of his
comrades, he now stripped, desiring those who had preceded
him to throw on their shirts and rest themselves for
another plunge, when he should have succeeded in finding
out where the missing musket had lodged.
"What's that?" exclaimed Jackson, pointing to a small,
dark object, of a nearly circular shape, which was floating
about half way between the surface of the place into
which the divers had plunged, and the weeds below.
His companions turned their eyes in the direction indicated,
but, almost immediately after Jackson had spoken, it had
disappeared wholly from view.
"What did it loot like?" asked the corporal.
"It must have been a mush rat," returned Jackson, "there's
plenty of them about here, and I reckon our diving has
disturbed the nest."
Corporal Nixon now took his leap, but some paces farther
out from the shore than his companions had ventured upon
theirs. The direction was the right one. Extending his
arms as he reached a space entirely free from weeds, his
right hand encountered the cold barrel of the musket,
but as he sought to glide it along, in order that he
might grasp the butt, and thus drag it endwise up, his
hand disturbed some hairy substance which rested upon
the weapon causing it to float slightly upwards, until
it came in contact with his naked breast. Now, the corporal
was a fearless soldier whose nerves were not easily
shaken, but the idea of a nasty mush rat, as they termed
it, touching his person in this manner, produced in him
unconquerable disgust, even while it gave him the desperate
energy to clutch the object with a nervous grasp, and
without regard to the chance of being bitten in the act,
by the small, sharp teeth of the animal. His consternation
was even greater when, on enclosing it within his rough
palm, he felt the whole to collapse, as though it had
been a heavy air-filled bladder, burst by the compression
of his fingers. A new feeling-a new chain of ideas now
took possession of him, and leaving the musket where it
was, he rose near the spot from which he first started,
and still clutching his hairy and undesirable prize,
threw it from him towards the boat, into the bottom of
which it fell, after grazing the cheek of Collins.
"Pooh! pooh! pooh," spluttered the latter, moving as if
the action was necessary to disembarrass him of the
unsightly object no longer there.
A new source of curiosity was now created, not only among
the swimmers, but the idlers who were smoking their pipes
and looking carelessly on. All now, without venturing to
touch the loathsome looking thing, gathered around it
endeavoring to ascertain really what it was. "What do
you make of the creature?" asked corporal Nixon, who,
now ascending the side of the boat, observed how much
the interest of his men had been excited.
"I'm sure I can't say," answered Jackson. "It looks for
all the world like a rat, only the hair is so long. Dead
enough though, for it does not budge an inch."
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