Two stars reeling, kind, bright stars, shone life for others though not for him. Perhaps for him, he wanted to believe; some coward drop in his blood tried to cheat reason and conscience. Why not for him? Could his doom be so heavy as to sink that great bulk with its scores of souls? And though now he should freely release others of his peril, who would ever count it to him for righteousness, to soften the reproach that would lie against his name so long as ever it were remembered?
The cold touched his brain. Surely he had died before, long ago, out of all this pain and distress. Waves heaved gigantically; spray dashed hard in his face; he shrank humanly, knowing he was not fit to die; she was coming through the sea bringing life. No, ah! not now. She was lurking in the sea holding death.
'Madness and treason are not in him.'
'He is a devil,' said Philip, 'a very devil. See! Go you now, and feign to persuade for abandoning the boat, and shipping together.'
'That will I in all good faith,' and he went and came again.
'First he refused outright; then he said, when the moment came we should know as well as he.'
'I knew it, I knew it,' chattered Philip, 'oh, a devil he is! Sir, you will see me out of his hands. I know what he intends: on the instant you quit the boat he casts off and has me at his mercy, he and that thing below. I am no coward, and it ill becomes you to hint it; and I fear death no more than any sinner must, no clean, straight death.
'Sir, his putting out of life was long and bloody: I saw it; death by inches. And he looked at me with infernal hatred then; the very same I saw in his eyes but now. Why should he check at sudden murder, but for a fouler revenge. You cannot judge as I. You have not seen him day after day. Treacherously he accepts friendship; he feigns to be witless; and all the while this hell-fire is hidden out of sight. You do not know how he has been denied opportunity, till rashly I offered it.
'O sir, quit of him this once, I am quit of him for ever! No, I mean no villainy against him, but—but—it happens—there is every inducement for him to choose that he and his boat never be seen of us again. Drown? no, he never was born to drown. The devil sees to his own.
'It is true—true. You saw the Thing yourself. Also, did he not refuse an oath? So has he all his life. Now know I: there are certain words he for his contract may not utter.'