"Seven," I said at length.
"Are ye sure?"
"Yes, perfectly."
"Then take that—and that—and that—and that!" And he pricked me in seven places with his infernal knife, holding it to my throat between the stabs in case I should sing out.
"Now," he said, "I'm going to give you a concert all to yourself. You're going to hear the star of the Grasmere free of charge. But get you along to the point of the spar first; then you'll be all ready. What, you won't? Ah, I thought that'd make you!"
I had obeyed him. He had followed me. And now the knife was back in his mouth—the blood had caked upon his beard—and the melodeon was between his hands. He played me the "Dead March." I should not have known it, for I was past listening, but the horrid grin in his mad eyes showed me that he was doing something clever, and then I discovered what. I was now past everything but holding on and watching my man, which, as I have since thought, was better than looking down. He was wearing his beloved jersey, and he had it the right way on. Upon his legs were a pair of thick worsted drawers; but his feet were naked, and his head was bare. It was his head I watched. His hair had been cropped very close. And the stars swam round and round it as we rose and fell.
I heard four bells struck away aft in the abyss, heard their echo from the forecastle head. It was two o'clock in the morning. As we dipped to port, Clunie suddenly lifted his melodeon in both hands, and heaved it clean over my head.
"Hear the splash?" he hissed. "Well, there'll be a bigger one in a minute, and you'll hear that. You're going to make it, Brother John!"
His words fell harmlessly on my ears. I had heard no splash. It was as though we were poised above a bottomless abyss.
The next thing I noted was the monotonous and altered sound in his voice. He was reciting "The Dream of Eugene Aram," and making the ghastliest faces close to mine as he did so. But I, too, was now astride of the spar. My legs were groping in mid-air for the brace. They found it. They clung to it. I flung myself from the spar, but the lithe, thin ropes gave with my weight, and I could not—no, I durst not let go.