"
Barnstable knew his man, and not another question was asked, until the
boat was without the breakers, now skimming the rounded summits of the
waves, or settling into the hollows of the seas, but always cutting the
waters asunder, as she urged her course, with amazing velocity, towards
the haven where the schooner had been left at anchor. Then, in a few but
bitter sentences, the cockswain explained to his commander the treachery
of Dillon, and the danger of the schooner.
"The soldiers are slow at a night muster," Tom concluded; "and from what
I overheard, the express will have to make a crooked course, to double
the head of the bay, so that, but for this northeaster, we might weather
upon them yet; but it's a matter that lies altogether in the will of
Providence. Pull, my hearties, pull--everything depends on your oars to-
night."
Barnstable listened in deep silence to this unexpected narration, which
sounded in the ears of Dillon like his funeral knell. At length, the
suppressed voice of the lieutenant was heard, also, uttering:
"Wretch! if I should cast you into the sea, as food for the fishes, who
could blame me? But if my schooner goes to the bottom, she shall prove
your coffin!"
CHAPTER XXIV.
"Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed."
_Tempest_.
The arms of Dillon were released from their confinement by the
cockswain, as a measure of humane caution against accidents, when they
entered the surf; and the captive now availed himself of the
circumstance to bury his features in the folds of his attire, when he
brooded over the events of the last few hours with that mixture of
malignant passion and pusillanimous dread of the future, that formed the
chief ingredients in his character.
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