He rose to his feet and stood there against the mast, in the old
half-submissive, half-defiant attitude, with his head thrown back in
the old way.
"If you order me, sir, I will swim ashore," he said, half sullenly,
half - I know not how.
"You would never reach the shore," I replied. "And you know that
I will never order you again. Stay here if you please, or come aft if
you please."
I went back and took the tiller from Sparrow. We were now in
mid-river, and the swollen stream and the strong wind bore us on
with them like a leaf before the gale. We left behind the lights and
the clamor, the dark town and the silent fort, the weary Due Return
and the shipping about the lower wharf. Before us loomed the
Santa Teresa; we passed so close beneath her huge black sides that
we heard the wind whistling through her rigging. When she, too,
was gone, the river lay bare before us; silver when the moon
shone, of an inky blackness when it was obscured by one of the
many flying clouds.
My wife wrapped her mantle closer about her, and, leaning back in
her seat in the stern beside me, raised her face to the wild and
solemn heavens. Diccon sat apart in the bow and held his tongue.
The minister bent over, and, lifting the man that lay in the bottom
of the boat, laid him at full length upon the thwart before us. The
moonlight streamed down upon the prostrate figure.
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