cabin window.

I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and, when I judged myself near
enough, rose at infinite risk to about half my height, and thus
commanded the roof and a slice of the interior of the cabin.

By this time the schooner and her little consort were gliding pretty
swiftly through the water; indeed, we had already fetched up level with
the campfire. The ship was talking, as sailors say, loudly, treading the
innumerable ripples with an incessant weltering splash; and until I got
my eye above the window-sill I could not comprehend why the watchmen had
taken no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient; and it was only one
glance that I durst take from that unsteady skiff. It showed me Hands
and his companion locked together in deadly wrestle, each with a hand
upon the other's throat.

I dropped upon the thwart again, none too soon, for I was near
overboard. I could see nothing for the moment, but these two furious,
encrimsoned faces, swaying together under the smoky lamp; and I shut my
eyes to let them grow once more familiar with the darkness.

The endless ballad had come to an end at last, and the whole diminished
company about the campfire had broken into the chorus I had heard so
often:

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

I was just thinking how busy drink and the devil were at that very
moment in the cabin of the _Hispaniola_, when I was surprised by a
sudden lurch of the coracle. At the same moment she yawed sharply and
seemed to change her course. The speed in the meantime had strangely
increased.

I opened my eyes at once. All round me were little ripples, combing over
with a sharp, bristling sound, and slightly phosphorescent. The
_Hispaniola_ herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being
whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss
a little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I
made sure she also was wheeling to the southward.

I glanced over my shoulder, and my heart jumped against my ribs. There,
right behind me, was the glow of the campfire. The current had turned at
right angles, sweeping round along with it the tall schooner and the
little dancing coracle; ever quickening, ever bubbling higher, ever
muttering louder, it went spinning through the narrows for the open sea.

Suddenly the schoon