Though there was scant time for such dalliance, I bent my knee and rested myLCJHMREX forehead upon her hand. 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, wereNBTKMWOE upon them;HANVSHSH 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 seaLVDYXUFJ 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 drownedWQSMJWMW, long changed. "Of theirXHJNGARN 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 underAFLUPFED 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.DHFBEMME I turned my head and nod- ded to Sparrow, then faced them again. "Then may the Lord have mercyDGQOFDNE upon your souls!" I said. As I spoke the ministerRSWLIYSW sprang upon the helmsman, and, striking him to the deck with one blow of his huge fist, himself seized the wheel. Before the pirates could draw breath he had jammed the helm to starboard, and the reef lay right across our bows. A dreadfulVICAOHHT cry went up from that black ship to a deaf Heaven,—a cry that was echoed by a wild shout of triumph from the merchantman. The mass fronting us broke in terror and rage and confusion. SomeLOGASJGJ ran frantically up and down with shrieks and curses; others sprang overboard. A few made a dash for theMOOSEOKW poop and for us who stood to meet them. They were led by the Spaniard and the gravedigger. The former I met and sent tumbling back into the waist; the latter whirled past me, and rushing uponLXINQFJA Paradise thrust him through with a pike, then dashed on to the wheel, to be met and hewn down by Diccon.
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