There was no light to be called so, but the helmsman was yet perceived by the sailor's experienced eyes, and he grappled the gunwale firmer, and, preparing to swing himself on board, shouted hoarsely,
"You Levin Dennis, I see you, by smoke! You know Jimmy Phœbus is your friend, an' come out of this Pangymonum an' stop a-breakin' of your mother's heart! Oh, I see you, my son!"
If he did see Levin Dennis, Levin did not see Jimmy Phœbus, nor apparently hear him, but stood motionless at the helm as a frozen man, looking straight on in the night. The rigging made a little flapping, the rudder creaked on its hooks, but every human sound was still as the grave now, and the boy at the helm seemed petrified and deaf and blind.
The pungy captain's temper rose, his superstition not being equal to that of most people, and he cried again,
"You're a disgrace to the woman that bore you. Hell's a-waitin' for your pore tender body an' soul. Heave ahoy an' let drop that gaff, an' take me aboard, Levin!"
Still silent and passive as a stone, the youthful figure at the helm did not seem to breathe, and the cat-boat cut the water like a fish-hawk.
A flash of bright fire lighted up the vessel's side, a loud pistol-shot rang out, and the sailor's hands loosened from the gunwale and clutched at the air, and he felt the black night fall on him as if he had pulled down its ebony columns upon his head.
He knew no more for hours, till he felt himself lying in cold water and saw the gray morning coming through tree-boughs over his head. He had a thirsty feeling and pain somewhere, and for a few minutes did not move, but lay there on his shoulder, holding to something and guessing what it might be, and where he might be making his bed in this chilly autumn dawn.
His hand was clutching the a-stern plank of the old scow, and was so stiff he could not for some time open it. The scow was aground upon a marshy shore, in which some large trees grew, and were the fringes of a woods that deepened farther back.
"By smoke!" muttered Jimmy, "if yer ain't hokey-pokey. But I reckon I ain't dead, nohow."