Here a boy in his shirt-sleeves straightened up in the yellow grass and looked seaward.  Then Sandy Plummer gave a yell and ran to the beach, rolling up what was left of his trousers legs, stopping now and then to untie first one shoe and then the other.  Two of the gang followed on a run.  When the three reached the water’s edge they danced about like Crusoe’s savages, waving their arms and shouting.  Sandy by this time had stripped off his clothes and had dashed into the water.  A long plank from some lumber schooner was drifting up the beach in the gentle swell of the tide.  Sandy ran abreast of it for a time, sprang into the surf, threw himself upon it flat like a frog, and then began paddling shoreward.  The other two now rushed into the water, grasping the near end of the derelict, the whole party pushing and paddling until it was hauled clean of the brine and landed high on the sand.

A triumphant yell here came from the water’s edge, and the balance of the gang—­there were seven in all—­rushed to the help of the dauntless three.

Archie heaped a pile of pebbles within reach of his hand and waited the attack.  What the savages were going to do with the plank neither he nor Tod could divine.  The derelict was now dragged over the sand to the hulk, Tod and Archie pelting its rescuers with stones and shells as they came within short range.

“Up with her, fellers!” shouted Sandy, who, since Scootsy’s unmanly tears, had risen to first place.  “Run it under the bowsprit—­up with her—­there she goes!  Altogether!”

Archie took his stand, his long sapling in his hand, and waited.  He thought first he would unseat the end of the plank, but it was too far below him and then again he would be exposed to their volleys of stones, and if he was hurt he might not get back on his craft.  Tod, who had resigned command in favor of his henchman after Archie’s masterly defence in the last fight, stood behind him.  Thermopylae was a narrow place, and so was the famous Bridge of Horatius.  He and his faithful Tod would now make the fight of their lives.  Both of these close shaves for immortality were closed books to Tod, but Archie knew every line of their records, Doctor John having spent many an hour reading to him, the boy curled up in his lap while Jane listened.

Sandy, emboldened by the discovery of the plank, made the first rush up and was immediately knocked from his perch by Tod, whose pole swung around his head like a flail.  Then Scootsy tried it, crawling up, protecting his head by ducking it under his elbows, holding meanwhile by his hand.  Tod’s blows fell about his back, but the boy struggled on until Archie reached over the gunwale, and with a twist of his wrist, using all his strength, dropped the invader to the sand below.

The success of this mode of attack was made apparent, provided they could stick to the plank.  Five boys now climbed up.  Archie belabored the first one with the pole and Tod grappled with the second, trying to throw him from the rail to the sand, some ten feet below, but the rat close behind him, in spite of their efforts, reached forward, caught the rail, and scrambled up to his mate’s assistance.  In another instant both had leaped to the sloop’s deck.