“’Zactly, and a devil of a mess they left us in more nor once, and we were glad to sheer off.”
“Extraordinary! it sounds like a dream.”
“But it ain’t, though, for one foggy night, when the ‘Dolphin’ lay anchored in the Sound, me and Tom Robinson were keeping watch on deck, and never thinking of any harm, for all the crew were snug in their hammocks, when it almost turned me grey to see three score of the Skeleton Crew clamber over the ship’s side like shadows, and begin to cut and hack us about awful. The deck was cleared in a second.”
“Did you not alarm the ship, and beat to quarters?”
“What was the use? I rushed to go below, but only put one leg down the hatchway ladder when it was cut off clean as a whistle.”
“Didn’t the crew rush up to assist you?”
“How could they, they were all dead!”
“Dead?”
“Yes, dead as door nails. The only ones to rush up was a gang o’ the Skeleton Crew who had been below quietly murdering the men in their hammocks.”
“Horrible!”