What he said was the truth, and I knew it. I knew that the gale was only just beginning, and that no boat could live through it for another hour. And then one of the devils loose on that All Souls Eve, or perhaps it was my own devil inside of me, put a new evil thought into my heart: making clear to me how I might get rid of Jan for good and all, and without its ending in my losing my head or in my losing Magali by being sent overseas. It was a chance, to be sure, and full of danger. But just then I was ready for any danger or for any chance.
"THE OTHERS WERE UPCAST ON THE ROCKS"
"Lie down in the bottom of the boat, Magali," I called sharply. "That is the safest place for you. We are going about."
I spoke the truth to Magali; but, also, I did not want her to see what happened. She did what I told her to do, and then I began to wear the boat around. How I did it without swamping, I do not know. Perhaps the devils of All Souls Eve held up my mast through the black moments while we lay wallowing in the trough of the sea. But I did do it; and when I was come about I headed straight for Jan's boat—lying dead to leeward of me, not twenty yards away. The clouds thinned suddenly and almost the full light of the moon was with us. We could see each other's faces plainly—and in mine he saw what I meant to do.
"It will be all of us together, Marius!" he called to me. "Do you want to murder Magali too?"
But I did not believe that it would be all of us together: for I knew that his boat was an old one, and that mine was new and strong. And, also, the devils had me in their hold. The gale was behind me, driving me down upon him like a thunder-bolt. As I shot close to him the moon shone out full for a moment through a rift in the clouds. In that moment I saw his face clearly. The moonlight gleamed on it. It was a ghastly dead white. But I do not suppose that it was for himself that he was afraid. Jan was not a coward, or he would not have jumped after me when I was drowning in the stormy sea.
Once more he called to me. "Marius! For the sake of Magali—"
And then there was a crashing and a rending of planks as I shot against his boat, and a sudden upspringing of my own boat under me. And after that, for a long while, a roaring of water about me, and my own body tumbled and thrust hither and thither in it, and at last a blow which seemed to dash me down into a vast black depth that was all buzzing with little blazing stars.
But the others were upcast on the rocks dead.