We're going to give him to the fishes. They're
putting him in his linen now."
Tarboe's face hardened. Disaster did not dismay him, it either made him
ugly or humourous, and one phase was as dangerous as the other.
"D'ye mean to say," he groaned, "that the game is up? Is it all
finished? Sweat o' my soul, my skin crawls like hot glass! Is it the
end, eh? The beast, to die!"
Gobal's eyes glistened. He had sent up the mercury, he would now bring
it down.
"Not such a beast as you think. Alive pirate, a convict, as comrade in
adventure, is not sugar in the teeth. This one was no better than the
worst. Well, he died. That was awkward. But he gave me the chart of
the bay before he died--and that was damn square."
Tarboe held out his hand eagerly, the big fingers bending claw-like.
"Give it me, Gobal," he said.
"Wait. There's no hurry. Come along, there's the bell: they're going to
drop him."
He coolly motioned, and passed out from the cabin to the ship's side.
Tarboe kept his tongue from blasphemy, and his hand from the captain's
shoulder, for he knew only too well that Gobal held the game in his
hands. They leaned over and saw two sailors with something on a plank.
"We therefore commit his body to the deep, in the knowledge of the
Judgment Day--let her go!" grunted Gobal; and a long straight canvas
bundle shot with a swishing sound beneath the water.
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