As I rose, the minister's
hand touched my shoulder and the voice spoke in my ear. "There is
another way," he said. "There is God's death, and not man's. Look
and see what I mean."
I followed the pointing of his eyes, and saw how close we were to
those white and tumbling waters, the danger signal, the rattle of
the hidden snake. The eyes of the pirate at the helm, too, were
upon them; his brows were drawn downward, his lips pressed
together, the whole man bent upon the ship's safe passage. . . . The
low thunder of the surf, the cry of a wheeling sea bird, the
gleaming lonely shore, the cloudless sky, the ocean, and the white
sand far, far below, where one might sleep well, sleep well, with
other valiant dead, long drowned, long changed. "Of their bones
are coral made."
The storm broke with fury and outcries, and a blue radiance of
drawn steel. A pistol ball sang past my ear.
"Don't shoot!" roared the gravedigger to the man who had fired the
shot. "Don't cut them down! Take them and thrust them under
hatches until we've time to give them a slow death! And hands off
the woman until we've time to draw lots!"
He and the Spaniard led the rush. I turned my head and nodded to
Sparrow, then faced them again. "Then may the Lord have mercy
upon your souls!" I said.
As I spoke the minister sprang upon the helmsman, and, striking
him to the deck with one blow of his huge fist, himself seized the
wheel.
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