And the Skipping Goone—well, she had settled deeper and deeper into the sea, till at last, with a distant sound like a sigh, with her flaming wound and her shattered masts, she slipped down beneath the waves. The bolt had plunged through the hull, tearing a ragged gash. Perhaps it had plunged on down to the very bottom of the sea, for all anyone knew and for all it mattered now.
IX
DREGS
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
EXALTATION
I
Time drew on, through September, October, November. It was December. It would soon be Christmas....