CHAPTER XXV
THE STORY FROM THE SEA
In few words, it came to this. The sailors on the island had proved themselves to be as bloody villains as had ever fed the gallows. They had taken the unhappy colonists by surprise and had massacred them, all but the women and the children. As for the women—poor things!—it would have been better for them if they had been killed with the others, but their lives were spared for greater sorrows. Those who told us that tale were all that were left, they said, of the unhappy company. They had escaped by mere chance to the woods, and had fashioned with their axes the rough raft and oars which had conducted them at last to us and to temporary safety.
This was their first raw story. Horrid as it was it took a stronger horror when one of the men shouted a curse at Cornelys Jensen.
‘Cornelys Jensen!’ I cried. ‘Cornelys Jensen—Cornelys Jensen is dead, and the seas have swallowed him.’
The man who had uttered his name gave a great groan.
‘Would to Heaven they had,’ he said. ‘But Heaven has not been so merciful. That tiger still lives and lusts for blood.’