Page 385 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

reading of this strange story made her nerves thrill. De-
spite the hypocritical grandiloquence and affected piety
of the narrative, it was easy to see that, save some warping
of facts to make for himself a better case, and to extol the
courage of the gaolers who had him at their mercy, the nar-
rator had not attempted to better his tale by the invention
of perils. The history of the desperate project that had been
planned and carried out five years before was related with
grim simplicity which (because it at once bears the stamp
of truth, and forces the imagination of the reader to supply
the omitted details of horror), is more effective to inspire
sympathy than elaborate description. The very barrenness
of the narration was hideously suggestive, and the girl felt
her heart beat quicker as her poetic intellect rushed to com-
plete the terrible picture sketched by the convict. She saw it
all—the blue sea, the burning sun, the slowly moving ship,
the wretched company on the shore; she heard—Was that a
rustling in the bushes below her? A bird! How nervous she
was growing!
‘Being thus fairly rid—as we thought—of our prison life,
we cheerfully held consultation as to our future course. It
was my intention to get among the islands in the South Seas,
and scuttling the brig, to pass ourselves off among the na-
tives as shipwrecked seamen, trusting to God’s mercy that
some homeward bound vessel might at length rescue us.
With this view, I made James Lesly first mate, he being an
experienced mariner, and prepared myself, with what few
instruments we had, to take our departure from Birches
Rock. Having hauled the whale-boat alongside, we stove her,

For the Term of His Natural Life