Through the night I held her wrist until it was
cold."
"Towards dawn, and just at that moment when a watcher's spirits are
at their lowest, Farrell stirred, stretched out his legs, drew them
up again, and asked how things were? . . . For his part (he added,
sitting up weakly), he felt a different man.
"'It behoves you to be,' said I with some sternness. 'Take the
tiller and--yes, you may hold on to it with some firmness. Your wife
is dead.'
"'Santa!' he gasped. 'Oh, my God!' and cast himself upon her body,
seemly bestowed as I could serve it.
"'Get off of it,' I shouted, 'before I brain you!' I held the very
gaff with which Grimalson had torn my arm. He had plucked the tiller
from the rudder-head, and with these two weapons in our right hands
we faced one another, each with his left feeling for the revolver he
carried.
"Then Farrell, who stood facing the bows, shot out his right as
if jabbing at me with the stick, a foot short of my shoulder.
The action was, as a stroke, so idiotic that, although it might so
easily have meant death to me, I turned half-about to where the stick
pointed, as the helmless boat yawed.
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