"To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God," returned Tom.
"These waves, to me, are what the land is to you; I was born on them,
and I have always meant that they should be my grave."
"But I--I," shrieked Dillon, "I am not ready to die!--I cannot die!--I
will not die!"
"Poor wretch!" muttered his companion; "you must go, like the rest of
us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster."
"I can swim," Dillon continued, rushing with frantic eagerness to the
side of the wreck. "Is there no billet of wood, no rope, that I can take
with me?"
"None; everything has been cut away, or carried off by the sea. If ye
are about to strive for your life, take with ye a stout heart and a
clean conscience, and trust the rest to God!"
"God!" echoed Dillon, in the madness of his frenzy; "I know no God!
there is no God that knows me!"
"Peace!" said the deep tones of the cockswain, in a voice that seemed to
speak in the elements; "blasphemer, peace!"
The heavy groaning, produced by the water in the timbers of the Ariel,
at that moment added its impulse to the raging feelings of Dillon, and
he cast himself headlong into the sea.
The water, thrown by the rolling of the surf on the beach, was
necessarily returned to the ocean, in eddies, in different places
favorable to such an action of the element. Into the edge of one of
these countercurrents, that was produced by the very rocks on which the
schooner lay, and which the watermen call the "undertow," Dillon had,
unknowingly, thrown his person; and when the waves had driven him a
short distance from the wreck, he was met by a stream that his most
desperate efforts could not overcome.
Pages:
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384