Hicks seized the ladder, while I held the foot of it to keep it from sliding to starboard. Then he turned.
“After you, Heywood,” he said, quickly. “Jump, there’s no time to lose.”
“Go!” I yelled; “go while you may. She’s going down now.”
But he turned his face to me, and for an instant I saw its expression in the dim light of the lamp still burning on the floor. There was no sign of fear in it. Only a deep sadness, as in one who has suffered a sudden great loss.
“After you,” he said, calmly, and made a motion with his hand toward the sloping steps. There was something of an old-time courtesy in that gesture that told of men who had gone before. They who had borne the name he had disgraced. Bad man he may have been, but who shall judge him after that gallant end?
I saw that argument would be useless, even had there been time for it. Seizing the steps, I mounted as quickly as I could, while I felt them slide beneath me. I grasped the coamings as the steps left my feet and fell away to starboard, leaving me hanging.
In a moment I had thrown a leg over the edge of the opening, and drew myself panting and gasping to the poop. Jones was just in the act of disappearing over the rail, having lowered Miss Allen and Ernest overboard to a couple of planks and gratings he had hove in. I called to him for aid to help me get Hicks out, but it was just too late.
The barque was now almost perpendicular, pointing bow forward to the bottom. As I staggered to my feet, she gave a sudden lurch. Then straight as an arrow, she dived, and I found myself in the roaring, swirling vortex she left behind.
In the choking blackness beneath the ocean’s surface, I seemed to stay. Down and down I went, in spite of frantic struggles. Then the suction ceased, and I began to mount. If I could only hold my breath a little longer!
A roaring was in my ears, and stars flashed in my eyes, and just when I was losing consciousness, my head came out into the air again.