"And now" ... he said, "that life-belt!"
But Tonet made an obscene gesture, and started to put the jacket on.
"You dog!" Pascualo cried. "I must speak, at last, tell you what I think of you, in just two words! You thought you had fooled me! But it was you I chased last night through the streets of the village. You had been with that foul woman ashore there! I am not going to kill you, because we're going to die together. But this boy here—I used to call him my Pascualet—is not to blame. And I'm not going to let him die. He may get drowned, and that would be almost better for him! But he must have what chance there is! That life-belt, Tonet! For your own boy, the child of your treachery and disgrace! You're a dog, but you are also a father! Hand it over, or I'll cut your throat!"
Tonet smiled an atrocious, cynical smile.
"I don't say he's not mine. But it's everybody for himself!"
He had the life-belt almost on, but he was not quick enough to finish. His brother was upon him. There was a quick desperate struggle on that pitching, rolling, wave-washed deck.
Tonet fell on his back. Pascualo had sunk the knife twice into his side. The Rector's thirst for vengeance had been assuaged!
Blind, not knowing what he was about, he adjusted the life-belt to the boy's tiny form, picked him up like a bundle of laths, walked astern, and threw him overboard. He saw him floating there for a second, till the crest of a great wave caught him.
It had all been the matter of minutes. The crowd on the point of the Breakwater saw the Mayflower drifting off entirely at the mercy of the storm. The rain suddenly had ceased, and the lightning-flashes were more distant now, though the gale still held furious, and the waves were coming even higher than before. The sailors could not tell, quite, what was going on on deck; but they saw the Rector throw a large bundle into the breakers, that lifted it up, and began to toss it shoreward, toward the rocks.
There was one last cry of horror.