Page 518 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

the boat, and, awed by the peril he had so narrowly escaped,
gave the order to return. As the men set the boat’s head to
the welcome line of lights that marked the Neck, a black
spot balanced upon a black line was swept under their stern
and carried out to sea. As it passed them, this black spot
emitted a cry, and they knew that it was one of the shattered
boat’s crew clinging to an oar.
‘He was the only one of ‘em alive,’ said Burgess, bandag-
ing his sprained wrist two hours afterwards at the Neck,
‘and he’s food for the fishes by this time!’
He was mistaken, however. Fate had in reserve for the
crew of villains a less merciful death than that of drown-
ing. Aided by the lightning, and that wonderful ‘good luck’
which urges villainy to its destruction, Vetch beached the
boat, and the party, bruised and bleeding, reached the up-
per portion of the shore in safety. Of all this number only
Cox was lost. He was pulling stroke-oar, and, being some-
thing of a laggard, stood in the way of the Crow, who, seeing
the importance of haste in preserving his own skin, plucked
the man backwards by the collar, and passed over his
sprawling body to the shore. Cox, grasping at anything to
save himself, clutched an oar, and the next moment found
himself borne out with the overturned whale-boat by the
under-tow. He was drifted past his only hope of rescue—
the guard-boat—with a velocity that forbade all attempts
at rescue, and almost before the poor scoundrel had time
to realize his condition, he was in the best possible way of
escaping the hanging that his comrades had so often hu-
morously prophesied for him. Being a strong and vigorous

1