r thought. The storm was
quite passed, but a chill wind was abroad that moaned dismally, while
all about me sodden trees dripped with mournful, sobbing noises. And
hearkening to all this, what should I be thinking but of the sweet,
soft tones of a woman's voice that had stirred within me memories of
better days, a voice that had set me to dreams of a future, to fond and
foolish imaginings. For, though shamed and brutalised by my
sufferings, I was a man and in this past hour (strange though it do
seem) felt scorn of myself and a yearning for higher things, and all
this by no greater reason than the sound of a woman's voice in the dark
and the touch of her warm lips on my hand--and she a Brandon! And now
as the bitter mockery of it all rushed upon me, fierce anger swept me
and I broke forth into vile oaths and cursings, English and Spanish,
foul invectives picked up from the rogues, my fellows in misery; and
feeling a new shame therefore, did but curse the more. So there
crouched I 'gainst the tree, shivering like the miserable wretch I was
and consumed with a ravening hunger. At last, becoming aware that I
yet grasped a weapon in either hand, I thrust my knife in my girdle and
fell to handling this other, judging it by touch since it was yet too
dark for eyes to serve me. And by its feel I knew it for no honest
knife; here was a thing wrought by foreign hands, a haft cunningly
shaped and wrought, a blade curiously slender and long and three-edged,
a very deadly thing I judged by the feel. Now since it had no sheath
(and it so sharp) I twisted my neckerchief about it from pommel to
needle-point, and thrusting it into the leathern wallet at my belt,
went on some way further 'mid the trees, seeking some place where I
might be sheltered from the cold wind. Then, all at once, I heard that
which brought me to a stand.

A man was singing and at no great distance, a strange, merry air and
stranger words; and the voice was loud, yet tuneful and mellow, and the
words (the which I came to know all too well) were these:

"Cheerly O and cheerly O,
Right cheerly I'll sing O,
Whiles at the mainyard to and fro
We watch a dead man swing O.
With a rumbelow and to and fro
He by the neck doth swing O!

One by the knife did part wi' life
And three the bullet took O,
But three times three died plaguily
A-wriggling on a hook O.
A hook both strong and bright and long,
They died by gash o' hook O.

So