"Curse her for a witch," cried one of the men, recoiling before the fierce aspect of the girl; but Moffat was filled with the lust of blood and of fury, and with a yell of menace, he pushed up the boat against the narrow shelf on which the pair were cowering.
"Hand over the boy."
A yell of pain interrupted him. Jessy, seeing better than she could be seen, had seized the moment and driven her dagger clean through the arm of the man who was seeking to clutch at the shelf.
Just for a few minutes the girl held her ground against the six furious men below, who, losing all sense of humanity at last, lifted their cutlasses and struck her blow upon blow; some of which missed their aim, for Jessy was nimble as a wild cat, but some of which fell upon her flesh, and at last brought her blinded with blood to her knees.
A stifled gasp close at hand told her of another deed of cruel cowardice. She turned to see Moffat wiping his cutlass, and little Tim lying stark and dead at her very feet.
At that sight a strange phrensy fell upon Jessy. Forgetting her wounds and her weakness, inspired as it seemed by some spirit other than her own, she rose to her feet, her eyes blazing in her head, and, with a loud and sonorous voice, she spoke the words of a terrible curse. She cursed the vessel whose crew had done this deed of infamy and shame; she cursed the men who had been the instruments of a bad man's rage; above all, she cursed the master himself, turning her gaze upon Moffat with such fearful effect, that he slipped back into the boat, and his men pulled away in the direst terror they had ever experienced.
Next morning Jessy Varcoe was found by some fishermen, seated on a ledge of rock just above high watermark, with the corpse of little Tim, whose life she had sought to save at risk of her own, folded in her arms.
She begged them not to wake him; she called him her baby, her darling. When they laid him to rest in the churchyard, she would spend long days sitting beside the mound, gazing over the sea for the sails of the Black Prince.
But from that day forward the Black Prince was never seen or heard of again. Perhaps the crew, fearing to return to a place where they had done such evil work, changed its name and rig, and took up life elsewhere. Perhaps she foundered in a gale, or fell a prey to some enemy's ship. But no news of her ever reached Morwinstow again.