I was about to refuse, but Rorie touched me as if in warning; and
indeed I had already thought better of the movement. I took the
bottle, therefore, and not only drank freely myself, but contrived
to spill even more as I was doing so. It was pure spirit, and
almost strangled me to swallow. My kinsman did not observe the
loss, but, once more throwing back his head, drained the remainder
to the dregs. Then, with a loud laugh, he cast the bottle forth
among the Merry Men, who seemed to leap up, shouting to receive it.

'Ha'e, bairns!' he cried, 'there's your han'sel. Ye'll get bonnier
nor that, or morning.'

Suddenly, out in the black night before us, and not two hundred
yards away, we heard, at a moment when the wind was silent, the
clear note of a human voice. Instantly the wind swept howling down
upon the Head, and the Roost bellowed, and churned, and danced with
a new fury. But we had heard the sound, and we knew, with agony,
that this was the doomed ship now close on ruin, and that what we
had heard was the voice of her master issuing his last command.
Crouching together on the edge, we waited, straining every sense,
for the inevitable end. It was long, however, and to us it seemed
like ages, ere the schooner suddenly appeared for one brief
instant, relieved against a tower of glimmering foam. I still see
her reefed mainsail flapping loose, as the boom fell heavily across
the deck; I still see the black outline of the hull, and still
think I can distinguish the figure of a man stretched upon the
tiller. Yet the whole sight we had of her passed swifter than
lightning; the very wave that disclosed her fell burying her for
ever; the mingled cry of many voices at the point of death rose and