tumbled to and fro like a live thing in the scuppers.

Suddenly the _Hispaniola_ came right into the wind. The jibs behind me
cracked aloud; the rudder slammed to; the whole ship gave a sickening
heave and shudder, and at the same moment the main-boom swung inboard,
the sheet groaning in the blocks, and showed me the lee after-deck.

There were the two watchmen, sure enough: red-cap on his back, as stiff
as a handspike, with his arms stretched out like those of a crucifix,
and his teeth showing through his open lips; Israel Hands propped
against the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, his hands lying open before
him on the deck, his face as white, under its tan, as a tallow candle.

For awhile the ship kept bucking and sidling like a vicious horse, the
sails filling, now on one tack, now on another, and the boom swinging to
and fro till the mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again,
too, there would come a cloud of light sprays over the bulwark, and a
heavy blow of the ship's bows against the swell: so much heavier weather
was made of it by this great rigged ship than by my home-made, lopsided
coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea.

At every jump of the schooner red-cap slipped to and fro; but--what was
ghastly to behold--neither his attitude nor his fixed teeth-disclosing
grin was anyway disturbed by this rough usage. At every jump, too, Hands
appeared still more to sink into himself and settle down upon the deck,
his feet sliding ever the farther out, and the whole body canting toward
the stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid from me; and
at last I could see nothing beyond his ear and the frayed ringlet of one
whisker.

At the same time, I observed, around both of them, splashes of dark
blood upon the planks, and began to feel sure that they had killed each
other in their drunken wrath.

While I was thus looking and wondering, in a calm moment, when the ship
was still, Israel Hands turned partly round, and, with a low moan,
writhed himself back to the position in which I had seen him first. The
moan, which told of pain and deadly weakness, and the way in which his
jaw hung open, went right to my heart. But when I remembered the talk I
had overheard from the apple barrel, all pity left me.

I walked aft until I reached the mainmast.

"Come aboard, Mr. Hands," I said ironically.

He rolled his eyes round heavily; but he was too far gone to express
surprise. All he could do was to utte