“'Tis the wind driving by the vessel!”
“'Tis the poor thing herself,” said the affected cockswain, “giving her last groans. The water is breaking up her decks, and, in a few minutes more, the handsomest model that ever cut a wave will be like the chips that fell from her timbers in framing!”
“Why then did you remain here!” cried Dillon, wildly.
“To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God,” returned Tom. “These waves, to me, are what the land is to you; I was born on them, and I have always meant that they should be my grave.”
“But I—I,” shrieked Dillon, “I am not ready to die!—I cannot die!—I will not die!”
“Poor wretch!” muttered his companion; “you must go, like the rest of us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster.”
“I can swim,” Dillon continued, rushing with frantic eagerness to the side of the wreck. “Is there no billet of wood, no rope, that I can take with me?”
“None; everything has been cut away, or carried off by the sea. If ye are about to strive for your life, take with ye a stout heart and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God!”
“God!” echoed Dillon, in the madness of his frenzy; “I know no God! there is no God that knows me!”
“Peace!” said the deep tones of the cockswain, in a voice that seemed to speak in the elements; “blasphemer, peace!”