How limp the lad felt beside this masterful old man!
In another moment he was standing in the chains, the dark and giddy waters swirling beneath him. The blood thumped in his temples.
Was it to be his St. Vincent? his chance?
The lugger came tearing up. He could hear the swish of the waters, white at her foot; he could see the wet sail, the bucketing bows, the fore-deck awash. She would pass bang beneath his feet. He could see no man at the helm—only the jumping bowsprit, the thrashing foot, and that huge lug-sail, bellying over the water.
Suddenly his mind flamed. In the white glare of it he saw the thing to do, and had done it, before cold reason could check him.
He jumped.
The boat and giddy waters rose up to meet him. He fell as on to a mattress, full of wind. It was the lug-sail he had struck. Down it he sprawled to the deck, there to find himself upon his hands and knees, something soft beneath him.
One man was in the boat; and that man was staring him in the face.
There was no mistaking him. He was black, with diamond eyes. The moon was on his face; and about his lips a queer snarling smile.
Kit expected him to pounce; yet he did not, lolling back in the stern-sheets, very much at his ease. The tiller under his arm wobbled, and he wobbled with it. In spite of those staring eyes of his, there was a dreadful unsteadiness about the man. Was he wounded?—was he drunk?