"
The young lieutenant paused in his troubled walk, and for a moment he
cast a glance of hesitation at the cliffs; but, at the next instant, his
eyes fell on the ruin of his vessel, and he answered:
"Never, boy, never; if my hour has come, I will not shrink from my
fate."
"Listen to the men, dear sir; the boat will be swamped, alongside the
wreck, and their cry is, that without you they will not let her go."
Barnstable motioned to the boat, to bid the boy enter it, and turned
away in silence.
"Well," said Merry, with firmness, "if it be right that a lieutenant
shall stay by the wreck, it must also be right for a midshipman; shove
off; neither Mr. Barnstable nor myself will quit the vessel."
"Boy, your life has been entrusted to my keeping, and at my hands will
it be required," said his commander, lifting the struggling youth, and
tossing him into the arms of the seamen. "Away with ye, and God be with
you; there is more weight in you now than can go safe to land."
Still the seamen hesitated, for they perceived the cockswain moving,
with a steady tread, along the deck, and they hoped he had relented, and
would yet persuade the lieutenant to join his crew. But Tom, imitating
the example of his commander, seized the latter suddenly in his powerful
grasp, and threw him over the bulwarks with an irresistible force. At
the same moment he cast the fast of the boat from the pin that held it,
and, lifting his broad hands high into the air, his voice was heard in
the tempest:
"God's will be done with me," he cried.
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