Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/172

160 "He diced it all," said Bill, "that time we stuck him with the Greeks."

"I'll throw you for the plug," replied the Newgate man. "He'll do now. He's only in some sort of a fit."

They then returned to the rum.

When Joe fell across the convict his eyes were burning in a mist of blood, which seemed to shoot and shake in front of him. His ears were drumming, as though a bird were beating his head with wings, and he felt that he was dropping from a height into some deep, empty well. In a little time the red mist cleared away; the drumming hushed; the feeling of dropping changed. He was in a little dark room, before a fire of embers, which made a red glow upon the chimney bricks. It was a lonely little room, darker than the night, but for the coals, and so still it might have been below the ground, below the graves even, beneath the dead with their glazed eyes. So utterly silent it was, he was glad to hear his heart beat. It beat steadily, like a menace, like the continual tapping of a drum. It was beating, not like a heart, but like a clock. Like some clock in hell