It seemed that Risk and his men put all their dependence on the long-boat out of Kirkcaldy. She was partly decked at the bows like a Ballantrae herring-skiff, beamy and commodious. They clustered round her like ants; swung her out, and over she went, and the whole hellish plot lay revealed in the fact that she was all found with equipment and provisions.
Horn and I made an effort to assist at her preparation; we were shoved aside with frantic curses; we were beaten back by her oars when we sought to enter her, and when she pushed off from the side of the Seven Sisters, Dan Risk was so much the monster that he could jeer at our perplexity. He sat at the tiller of her without a hat, his long hair, that was turning lyart, blown by the wind about his black and mocking eyes.
“Head her for Halifax, Horn,” said he, “and ye'll get there by-and-by.”
“Did I ever do ye any harm, skipper?” cried the poor seaman, standing on the gunwale, hanging to the shrouds, and his aspect hungry for life.
“Ye never got the chance, Port Glesca,” cried back Risk, hugging the tiller of the Kirkcaldy boat under his arm. “I'll gie ye a guess—
Come-a-riddle, come-a-riddle, come-a-rote-tote-tote—
Oh to bleezes! I canna put a rhyme till't, but this is the sense o't—a darkie's never deaf and dumb till he's deid. Eh! Antonio, ye rascal!”
He looked forward as he spoke and exchanged a villainous laugh with the cook, his instrument, who had overheard us and betrayed.
“Ye would mak' me swing for it, would ye, John Horn, when ye get ashore? That's what I would expect frae a keelie oot o' Clyde.”
It is hard to credit that man could be so vile as this, but of such stuff was Daniel Risk. He was a fiend in the glory of his revenge upon the seaman who had threatened him with the gallows; uplifted like a madman's, his face, that was naturally sallow, burned lamp-red at his high cheek-bones, his hale eye gloated, his free hand flourished as in an exultation. His mate sat silent beside him on the stern-thwart, clearing the sheets: the crew, who had out the sweeps to keep the boat's bows in the wind, made an effort to laugh at his jocosities, but clearly longed to be away from this tragedy. And all the time, I think, I stood beside the weather bulwark, surrendered to the certainty of a speedy death, with the lines of a ballad coming back again and again to my mind: