“There is no reason that all should die.”
The spectres turned their hollow eyes to him.
Petit read the faces of his three comrades slowly.
The waves, intensely blue and sparkling, rose and fell with awful monotony.
Again, and for the third time, the carnivorous face was thrust forward and the swollen lips framed its sentence:
“For what reason should all die?”
In the ears of the others the words sounded like the tolling of that bell which heralds criminals to execution. They looked not at the waters, not at the sky, not upon each other, but at Jean Petit.
And on the faces of the three was the same questioning, anxious stare.
The red eye grew redder and more devilish.
The man at the tiller tongued his lips and went on in a harsh croak, like the croaking of some foul bird of prey which had scented a carcase: