| 485 | 486 | 487 | 488 | 489 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
|
Another mortal struggle, and he was up again, beating the water with
his hands, and looking out, with wild and glaring eyes that showed
him some black object he was drifting close upon. The hull of a ship!
He could touch its smooth and slippery surface with his hand. One
loud cry, now - but the resistless water bore him down before he could
give it utterance, and, driving him under it, carried away a corpse.
It toyed and sported with its ghastly freight, now bruising it against
the slimy piles, now hiding it in mud or long rank grass, now dragging
it heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning to yield it to its
own element, and in the same action luring it away, until, tired of the
ugly plaything, it flung it on a swamp - a dismal place where pirates
had swung in chains through many a wintry night - and left it there to
bleach.
And there it lay alone. The sky was red with flame, and the water that
bore it there had been tinged with the sullen light as it flowed along.
The place the deserted carcass had left so recently, a living man, was
now a blazing ruin. There was something of the glare upon its face.
The hair, stirred by the damp breeze, played in a kind of mockery of
death - such a mockery as the dead man himself would have delighted
in when alive - about its head, and its dress fluttered idly in the night
wind.
Page
Quick Jump
|