hese valleys of water lay the mutineers' boat, looking, with its
outspread oars, like some six-legged insect floating in a pool of ink.
The great cliff, whose every scar and crag was as distinct as though
its huge bulk was but a yard distant, seemed to shoot out from its base
towards the struggling insect, a broad, flat straw, that was a strip of
dry land. The next instant the rushing water, carrying the six-legged
atom with it, creamed up over this strip of beach; the giant crag, amid
the thunder-crash which followed upon the lightning, appeared to stoop
down over the ocean, and as it stooped, the billow rolled onwards,
the boat glided down into the depths, and the whole phantasmagoria was
swallowed up in the tumultuous darkness of the tempest.

Burgess--his hair bristling with terror--shouted to put the boat about,
but he might with as much reason have shouted at an avalanche. The wind
blew his voice away, and emptied it violently into the air. A snarling
billow jerked the oar from his hand. Despite the desperate efforts of
the soldiers, the boat was whirled up the mountain of water like a
leaf on a water-spout, and a second flash of lightning showed them
what seemed a group of dolls struggling in the surf, and a walnut-shell
bottom upwards was driven by the recoil of the waves towards them. For
an instant all thought that they must share the fate which had overtaken
the unlucky convicts; but Burgess succeeded in trimming the boat, and,
awed by the peril he had so narrowly escaped, gave the order to return.
As the men set the boat's head to the welcome line of lights that marked
the Neck, a black spot balanced upon a black line was swept under their
stern and carried out to sea. As it passed them, this black spot emitted
a cry, and they knew that it was one of the shattered boat's crew
clinging to an oar.

"He was the only one of 'em alive," said Burgess, bandaging his sprained
wrist two hours afterwards at the Neck, "and he's food for the fishes by
this time!"

He was mistaken, however. Fate had in reserve for the crew of villains
a less merciful death than that of drowning. Aided by the lightning,
and that wonderful "good luck" which urges villainy to its destruction,
Vetch beached the boat, and the party, bruised and bleeding, reached the
upper portion of the shore in safety. Of all this number only Cox was
lost. He was pulling stroke-oar, and, being something of a laggard,
stood in the way of the Crow, who,