angs; from the glance of her
cruel eye in the direction of the child, and the working of her long,
crooked talons, rather than fingers, writhed like knotted serpents; I
understood them with an instinct that made me clutch him closely to my
breast, and narrowly watch his enemy from that hour until the time when
my brain failed and my eyes closed in unconsciousness, and with the
determination to plunge with him into the sea rather than devote him to
such a fate or yield to such an alternative as this wretch in human form
had more than hinted--even should the animal instinct, underlying every
nature, presume to dictate to reason at the last!

We could but die--that was the very worst that Fate had in store for
us--_but_ die in the body! How infinitely worse that the soul should
perish through the selfish sensuousness of cannibalism, which would
degrade life itself below dissolution, even if preserved by such means!

"I am ready now to go to Captain Ambrose for assistance," said Ada
Greene, poising herself before me, and having surrendered or forgotten
her first idea, evidently, in the new mania of the moment. "Of course,
he does not intend to leave us here to perish, and he is in the next
cabin--but a step; see how easily I can get to him, and I shall be back
before you can say 'Presto!'"

As nimbly as a sea-gull runs upon the sand, the young creature flew
across the now level raft toward the sea, but a strong hand clutched her
as she was about to step overboard, and compelled her back to her place
on the platform, where, bound with cords, she lay raving, until sleep or
unconsciousness mercifully supervened to spare me the spectacle of her
agony, which no human power could alleviate.

Hours passed before this "consummation devoutly to be wished" took
effect, and, at the end of that time, my reeling brain, my fainting
energies, warned me that I, too, was probably approaching some dreadful
crisis. With a view to the refreshment its waters could possibly afford
my head, I crept quietly from the platform on which the old negro woman
held enforced guard over the insensible form of Ada Greene, and, still
clasping the poor helpless one, so mysteriously thrust upon my tender
mercies, to my bosom, I gained the edge of the raft, unnoticed by
Christian Garth, who might otherwise have apprehended me in turn, and
borne me back to my allotted precincts, and hung above the ocean, so as
to suffer its cooling spray to fall unceasingly a