What followed was wiped from his memory for years, and the loss was not
much to be regretted. When he tried to think about it, he found nothing
but a roaring of wind and of waves in his ears, a numbness of arms as he
laboured with the oar tholed abaft to keep her heavy head up, a prickly
chill in his legs as the brine in the wallowing boat ran up them, and
then a great wallop and gollop of the element too abundant round him.
But at last, when long years should have brought more wisdom, he went
poaching for supper upon Welsh rabbits. That night all the ghastly time
came back, and stood minute by minute before him. Every swing of his
body, and sway of his head, and swell of his heart, was repeated, the
buffet of the billows when the planks were gone, the numb grasp of
the slippery oar, the sucking down of legs which seemed turning into
sea-weed, the dashing of dollops of surf into mouth and nose closed ever
so carefully, and then the last sense of having fought a good fight, but
fallen away from human arms, into "Oh Lord, receive my spirit!"
CHAPTER LV
IN SAVAGE GUISE
"A man came out of the sea to-day, and made me believe we were all found
out," said the gay Charron to the gloomy Carne, a day or two after poor
Scudamore's wreck. "I never beheld a more strange-looking creature as
the owner of our human face divine, as some of your poets have found
to say. He has hair from his head all down to here"--the little Captain
pointed to a part of his system which would have been larger in more
tranquil times--"and his clothes were so thin that one was able to see
through them, and the tint of his face was of roasted sugar, such as it
is not to obtain in England.
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