With a round oath, he
yelled, "I'll make you grovel and ask me to stop."
Kipping had moved quickly, but old Bill moved more quickly still. Springing
to his feet like a flash, with a look of anguish on his face such as I hope
I never shall see again, he warded off a blow of the mallet with his hand
and, running to the side, scrambled clean over the bulwark into the sea.
We stood there like men in a waxwork for a good minute at the very least;
and if you think a minute is not a long time, try it with your eyes shut.
Kipping's angry snarl was frozen on his mean features,--it would have been
ludicrous if the scene had not been so tragic,--and his outstretched hand
still held the mallet at the end of the blow. The carpenter's mouth was
open in amazement. Neddie Benson, the first to move or break the silence,
had spread his hands as if he were about to clutch at a butterfly or a
beetle; dropping them to his side, he gasped huskily, "She said there'd be
a light man and a dark man--I--oh, Lord!"
It was the cook, as black as midnight and as inscrutable as a figurehead,
who brought us to our senses. Silently observing all that had happened, he
had stood by the galley, without lifting his hand or changing the
expression of a single feature; but now, taking his pipe from his mouth, he
roared, "Man ovehboa'd!" Then, snatching up the carpenter's bench with one
hand and gathering his great body for the effort, he gave a heave of his
shoulders and tossed the bench far out on the water.
Pages:
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125