lying open before him on the
deck, his face as white, under its tan, as a tallow-candle.

For a while the ship kept bucking and sidling like a vicious horse, the
sails filling, now on one tack, now on another, and the boom swinging to
and fro till the mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again, too,
there would come a cloud of light sprays over the bulwark, and a heavy
blow of the ship's bows against the swell: so much heavier weather was
made of it by this great rigged ship than by my home-made, lop-sided
coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea.

At every jump of the schooner, red-cap slipped to and fro; but--what was
ghastly to behold--neither his attitude nor his fixed teeth-disclosing
grin was anyway disturbed by this rough usage. At every jump, too, Hands
appeared still more to sink into himself and settle down upon the deck,
his feet sliding ever the farther out, and the whole body canting towards
the stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid from me; and at
last I could see nothing beyond his ear and the frayed ringlet of one
whisker.

At the same time, I observed, around both of them, splashes of dark blood
upon the planks, and began to feel sure that they had killed each other
in their drunken wrath.

While I was thus looking and wondering, in a calm moment, when the ship
was still, Israel Hands turned partly round, and, with a low moan,
writhed himself back to the position in which I had seen him first. The
moan, which told of pain and deadly weakness, and the way in which his
jaw hung open, went right to my heart. But when I remembered the talk I
had overheard from the apple-barrel, all pity left me.

I walked aft until I reached the main-mast.

"Come aboard, Mr. Hands," I said ironically.

He rolled his eyes round heavily; but he was too far gone to express
surprise. All he could do was to utter one word, "Brandy."

It occurred to me there was no time to lose; and, dodging the boom as it
once more lurched across the deck, I slipped aft, and down the
companion-stairs into the cabin.

It was such a scene of confusion as you can hardly fancy. All the
lockfast places had been broken open in quest of the chart. The floor was
thick with mud, where ruffians had sat down to drink or consult after
wading in the marshes round their camp. The bulk-heads, all painted in
clear white, and beaded round with gilt, bore a pattern of dirty hands.
Dozens of empty bottles clinked together in co