We might by a concerted action have tackled one man, but the other on the bank, with the whip and the dog, was a formidable second line to carry.

It needed all our philosophy to sustain us in the emergency.
"Come, wake up," shouted the man.

"'Ere, Tike, come!" Whereupon, to our terror, the dog leapt up on to the barge, and jumped yapping in our midst.
"T'other side, if _you_ please," said the bargee, as I prepared dismally to take my header on the near side.

"Wake 'im up, Tike!" I needed no waking up; and giving myself up for lost, bounded to the other side of the barge, and made a floundering jump overboard.

Luckily for us the Low Heathens could swim to a man, and if all that we were in for was to swim round that hideous barge and get ashore, we should have been easily out of it.