"And the hands?"
"In the bay, too."
"Then I'm for the bay, also."
"Hock him and heave him over," said Sharkey.
Many rough hands had dragged Craddock out upon deck, and Galloway, the quartermaster, had already drawn his hanger to cripple him, when Sharkey came hurrying from his cabin with an eager face.
"We can do better with the hound!" he cried. "Sink me if it is not a rare plan. Throw him into the sailroom with the irons on, and do you come here, quartermaster, that I may tell you what I have in my mind."
So Craddock, bruised and wounded in soul and body, was thrown into the dark sailroom, so fettered that he could not stir hand or foot. But his Northern blood was running strong in his veins, and his grim spirit aspired only to make such an ending as might go some way towards atoning for the evil of his life. All night he lay in the curve of the bilge listening to the rush of the water and the straining of the timbers which told him that the ship was at sea and driving fast. In the early morning someone came crawling to him in the darkness over the heap of sails.
"Here's rum and biscuits," said the voice of his late mate. "It's at the risk of my life, Master Craddock, that I bring them to you."
"It was you who trapped me and caught me as in a snare!" cried Craddock. "How shall you answer for what you have done?"
"What I did I did with the point of a knife betwixt my blade-bones."