I dragged the spar over me, and floated under the strip of sail with no
more than my nose showing between it and the wood, and the long black hull,
with its red streak glistening as though but just new dipped in blood,
swept past me so close that I could have touched it. Through the opening
between my sail and the spar I could see grim faces looking over the side,
and the flash and smoke of muskets as the poor strugglers beyond were shot
down one by one.

I lay there--in fear and trembling, I confess, for against cold-blooded
brutality such as this no man's courage may avail--till the last shots had
long died away. And when at last I ventured to raise my head and look about
me, the Frenchman was stretching away to the north-east and the Indiaman
was pressing to the north, and both were far away. The sun sank like a ball
of fire dipped in blood as I watched. The long red trail faded off the
waters, and the soft colours out of the sky. The sea was a chill waste of
tumbling waves. The sky was a cast-iron shutter. The manhood went out of
me, and I sank with a sob on to my frail spar, for of all our company which
had sailed so gallantly out of Peter Port five days before, I was the only
one left, and the rest had all been done to death in most foul and cruel
fashion.




CHAPTER XIX

HOW I FELL INTO THE _RED HAND_