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When both were ready, I eased off the rope suddenly, and Marble, partly by crawling, and partly by floating and dragging himself by the hands, actually got to the yard-arm, which was immediately raised from the water, however, by the drift made by the spars, while he was achieving his object.
The ship which followed, approached us, and kept up a brisk fire. We manoeuvred to get into a better position; I ran close to her until we were yard-arm and yard-arm, and maintained a terrible and well-supported fire: after being engaged an hour and a half, she was completely dismasted, making water in every part.
They crawl aboard ship in sight of Strathlone Head! Here's hoping it may be a yard-arm jig he'll dance!" He emptied his glass, refused more. McKay took him to the wicket and let him loose. "Well, over the top, old scout!" said Sixty-seven cheerily, exchanging a quick handclasp with McKay. And so the fog took him.
For all that, we had only exchanged traps, jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, ran from the yard-arm to the block, and escaped the open hostility of the man-of-war to lie at the mercy of the doubtful faith of our Albanian merchant. From many circumstances, it chanced we were safer than we could have dared to hope.
"Ef an able seaman had fallen from the yard-arm that night he'd been sunk in sight o' the ship, and thet baby ez can't swim a stroke sails ashore, sound asleep, with the waves for a baby-jumper." North, who was half relieved, yet half awkwardly disappointed at not seeing Bessy, ventured to ask how the child was doing.
Our new captain caught that gaze, and I was, for a single moment, in hope he would relent, and let the wretch go. But Marble had persuaded himself he was performing a great act of nautical justice; nor was he aware, himself, how much he was influenced by a feeling allied to vengeance. "Sway away!" he called out; and Smudge was dangling at the yard-arm in a few seconds.
Hale began to cry; yet something possessed Margaret to force the information she foresaw, yet dreaded, from her mother. 'What happened to them, mamma? asked she. 'They were hung at the yard-arm, said Mrs. Hale, solemnly. 'And the worst was that the court, in condemning them to death, said they had suffered themselves to be led astray from their duty by their superior officers.
Roger was looking forward when he observed an object fall from the yard; at the same time a cry burst forth from the throats of several of the crew, "A man overboard!" As Roger ran to the side he had seen Charlie Ross on the yard-arm, but he was not there now, and as the person floated by he felt sure that he was his friend.
"Don't mention the halter, Mistress Nancy, you'll make me melancholy," replied Jemmy, "and I sha'n't be able to sing any more. Well, if they want to hang me, they need not rig the yard-arm, three handspikes as sheers, and I shouldn't find soundings, heh! Moggy?" Nancy laughed at the ludicrous idea; but Moggy exclaimed with vehemence, "Hang my Jemmy! my darling duck! I should like to see them."
Two of our shipmates were hove off from the lee yard-arm, and their despairing shrieks reached our ears as they drifted away, a warning to us of what might be our fate. "We have some Jonah on board," I heard the first mate observe to the second. He was a rough sailor, such as are not often met with now-a-days, though then they were common. "If we could find him, we would heave him overboard."
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