But now like an icy whizzing blast they all came down upon him, staring at him with their hollow eyes.
They gnashed their teeth, and each one of them sighed and groaned for his lost life.
Then Jack, in his horror, put out from Sjöholm.
But the sail slackened, and he glided into dead water.17 There, in the midst of the still water, was a floating mass of rotten swollen planks. All of them had once been shaped and fashioned together, but were now burst and sprung, and slime and green mould and filth and nastiness hung about them.
Dead hands grabbed at the corners of them with their white knuckles and couldn't grip fast. They stretched themselves across the water and sank again.
Then Jack let out all his clews and sailed and sailed and tacked according as the wind blew.
He glared back at the rubbish behind him to see if those things were after him. Down in the sea all the dead hands were writhing, and tried to strike him with gaffs astern.
Then there came a gust of wind whining and howling, and the boat drove along betwixt white seething rollers.
The weather darkened, thick snowflakes filled the air, and the rubbish around him grew greener.
In the daytime he took the cormorants far away in the grey mist for his landmarks, and at night they screeched about his ears.