At this moment Pennyfarden, catching me by the arm, calls out:
"Lord love us, master! look above there."
Looking up as he bade us we then perceived (our eyes being now grown accustomed to this obscurity) two bodies hanging over the sea about a fathom from our heads we sat in our boats, on that side of the ship which (as I say) inclined over towards the water. Despite the dimness, we made these out to be the corpses of men, and doubted not that they hung there from the yard-arms above.
For some while we could do nothing but strain our eyes at these indistinct objects as they slowly swung in the little breeze that was springing, being pierced (as it were) with fear that this was my poor old uncle, thus barbarously put to death by the mutineers; but still more terrified with the uncertainty of the whole business, the silence, the darkness, and that foul stench of corruption that poisoned the air.
"Let us get hence!" says one of the seamen hoarsely.
"Nay, we must know if this be our commander that hangs here ere we venture to the ship where there is light," says Palmer. "Have you never a tinder-box, master, or anything dry enough to burn?"
I had my tinder-gun dry in my pocket, and my lady found amongst our store in the canoe two or three of the cuati-nuts, and with some ado we contrived to get these alight under the tent that I have mentioned. And when they were well ablaze we rowed right under the hanging bodies, where, standing up, I suddenly brought the flaming nuts out of the tent and lifted them up as high as I could over my head, so that the light fell on the faces above. Their eyes were staring wide open, and their lower jaws were dropped. But one was an eye short, and I knew him at once for Ned Parsons; while the other, by his pointed teeth alone, I could have sworn to amongst a thousand for our old enemy Rodrigues!