Page:The Moral Pirates.djvu/102

80 excitement over their narrow escape, had totally forgotten, came rushing up, seized the boat, and threw it over the piles into a shallow and muddy lagoon.

It was almost miraculous that the boat was not capsized; but she was actually lifted up and thrown over the piles, without taking more than a few quarts of spray into her. When they saw that they were absolutely safe, the boys began to wonder how in the world they could get the boat back into the river, and Jim proposed to light the lantern and see if anything was missing out of the boat, and if she had been injured.

"Now I see why the steamboat did not notice us," exclaimed Tom.

"Why?" asked all the others together.

"Because," he replied, "we have been such everlasting idiots as to sail at, night without showing a light."