The men crawled upon the sea-washed rocks, I say, and there the judgment of God came upon them. So awful was the scene my eyes were soon to behold that I take up my pen with hesitation even now to write of it; and as I write some figure of the shadows comes before me and seems to say, "You cannot speak of it! It is of the past, forgotten!" And, certainly, if I could make it clear to you how Czerny's men were forever driven off from the gate of the house that Czerny built, if I could make it clear to you and leave the thing untold, that would I do right gladly. But the end was not of my seeking; in all honesty I can say that if it had been in my power I would have helped those wretched creatures, have dealt out pity to them and carried them to the shore; but it was written otherwise; a higher Power decreed it; we could but stand, trembling and helpless, before that enthralling justice.
They climbed on the rocks, forty or fifty of them, may-be, and lying in all attitudes, some stretched out full length, some with their arms in the flowing tide, some huddled close as though for warmth, they appeared to surrender themselves to the inevitable and to accept the worst; when, rising up out of the near sea, the first octopus showed himself, and a great tentacle, sliding over the rock, drew one of the mutineers screaming to the depths. Thereafter, in an instant, the whole terror was upon them. Leaping up together, they uttered piercing cries, turned upon each other in their agony, hurled themselves into the sea, to reach the boats again. God! how few of them touched the befriending prows! The whole water about the reef was now alive with the devilish creatures; a hundred arms, crushing, sucking, swept the unsheltered rocks and drew the victims down. So near were they, some of them, that I could see their staring eyes and distorted limbs as, in the fishes' embracing grip, they were drawn under to the gaping mouths or pressed close to that jellied mass which must devour them. The sea itself heaved and splashed as though to be the moving witness of that horrible attack; foam rushed up to our feet; a blinding spray was in the air; eyes protruded even in the green water; great shapes wormed and twisted, rending one another, covering the whole reef with their filthy slime, sending blinding fountains to the highest pinnacles, or sinking down when their prey was taken to the depths where no eye could follow them. What sounds of pain, what resounding screams, rent the air in those fearful minutes! I draw the veil upon it. For all the gold that the sea washes to-day in Czerny's house, I could not look upon such a picture again. For death can be a gentle thing; but there is a death no man may speak of.
* * *
At twelve o'clock the clouds broke and the rain began to fall upon a rising sea. The vapours still lay thick upon Ken's Island, but the wind was driving them, and they rolled away in misty clouds westward to the dark horizon.
I went below to little Ruth, and in broken words I told her all my story.
"Little Ruth, the night is passed, the day is breaking! Ah, little Ruth!"
She fell into my arms, sobbing. The sleep-time was past, indeed; the hour of our deliverance at hand.