His voice, in spite of all his efforts, rose from a startled cry to a long piercing shriek, such as it curdled our blood to hear.
Hayston came up from the cabin, followed by Nellie and the other girls. All crowded round him in silence. They knew well at the first cry he was a doomed man.
"Carry him down, lads!" he said, as he laid his hand on his forehead and passed it quietly over his clustering hair—"poor Dick! poor fellow!" At this moment another frightful spasm shook the seaman's frame, and scarcely could the men who had lifted him from the deck on which he had been lying control his tortured limbs. As they reached the lower deck another terrible cry reached our ears, while the continuous groaning of the poor fellow first attacked made a ghastly and awful accompaniment to the screams of the latest victim.
As for me, I walked forward and sat as near as I could get to the Leonora's bows, where I lit my pipe and awaited the moment in which only too probably my own summons would come in a like pang of excruciating agony. The gleaming phosphorescent wavelets of that calm sea fell in broken fire from the vessel's side, while the hissing, splashing sound deadened the recurring shrieks of the doomed sufferers, and soothed my excited nerves.
Now that death was so near, in such a truly awful shape, I began seriously to reflect upon the imprudence, nay, more, the inexcusable folly of continuing a life exposed to such terrible hazards.
If my life was spared I would resolve, like poor Dick, to stay at home in future. The resolution might avail me as little as it had done in his case.
As I sat hour after hour gazing into the endless shadow and gleam of the great deep, a strange feeling of peace and resignation seemed to pass suddenly over my troubled spirit. I felt almost tempted to plunge beneath the calm bosom of the main, and so end for aye the doubt, the fear, the rapture, and despair of this mysterious human life. All suddenly the moon rose, sending before her a brilliant pathway, adown which, in my excited imagination, angels might glide, bearing messages of pardon or reprieve. A distinct sensation of hope arose in my mind. A dark form glided to my side, and seated itself on the rail.
"You hear eight bell?" she said. "Listen now, you all right—no more poison—he go away." She held my hand—the pulse was steady and regular. In spite of my efforts at calmness and self-control, I was sensible of a strange exaltation of spirit. The heaven above, the sea below, seemed animate with messengers of pardon and peace. Even poor Nellie, the untaught child of a lonely isle, "placed far amid the melancholy main," seemed transformed into a celestial visitant, and her large, dark eyes glowed in the light of the mystic moon rays.
"You well, man Hil'ree!" she said in the foc'sle vernacular. "No more go maté. Nellie so much glad," and here her soft low tones were so instinct with deepest human feeling that I took her in my arms and folded her in a warm embrace.
"How's poor Dick?" I asked, as we walked aft to where Hayston and the rest of the cabin party were seated.