They soon procured arms, and howling like wild animals, attacked him, staggering the while like drunken men with weakness. Crudelius now joined the mate, and there ensued a conflict in which two were slain, and their bodies were cast overboard by the survivors, who were already so glutted by their horrible food as to have no desire for more.
By the noon of the next day, all had perished by exhaustion, save the mate and the Dame Van Estell.
Night was coming on, and the poor solitary seaman was sitting on the windlass in a species of stupor, when an unusual coolness in the atmosphere roused his attention, and, with a sailor's instinct, he felt the coming breeze.
First there came a gentle catspaw upon the darkening water, then a ripple, and now a whitening of the wave-tops at a distance. He stretched his tremulous hands towards them, and wept in joy!
Anon, clouds came banking up in dense masses to leeward, and rain—blessed rain! began to fall, while the wind of heaven blew the long neglected rigging out in bands, and filled the flapping sails.
A brace of lazy gulls suddenly appeared wheeling about; and a bird—a land bird—perched on the end of the studding-sail boom alongside.
The haggard eyes of Carpinger swept the horizon, and saw afar off a spark, which he at first supposed to be a star, but, ere long, discovered to be a light; yet whether it shone on board of a ship, or on the shore, he knew not; so he lashed the helm, and rushing to the lifts and braces, strove to trim the sails and shape the vessel's course towards it.
The bunting began to shake at the gaff-peak; ere long it floated out upon the wind, while a wake whitened astern, a bubble rose under the bows, and the De Ruyter walked through the water as of yore.
The breeze continued, and next morning she was close in upon a bleak, rugged, and mountainous coast, which proved to be the Lizard Point in Cornwall, the most southern promontory of England.*
* It must be borne in mind that the mouth of the Channel was less frequented by shipping in 1670, than now.