Page:Ballantyne--The Coral Island.djvu/269

 breasts of these men. Forward they went in ruthless indifference, shouting as they went, while high above their voices rang the dying shrieks of those wretched creatures, as one after another, the ponderous canoe passed over them, burst the eyeballs from their sockets, and sent the life's blood gushing from their mouths. Oh, reader, this is no fiction. I would not, for the sake of thrilling you with horror, invent so terrible a scene. It was witnessed. It is true; true as that accursed sin which has rendered the human heart capable of such diabolical enormities!

When it was over I turned round and fell upon the grass with a deep groan; but Bill seized me by the arm, and lifting me up as if I had been a child, cried,—

"Come along, lad; let's away!"—and so, staggering and stumbling over the tangled underwood, we fled from the fatal spot.

During the remainder of that day I felt as if I were in a horrible dream. I scarce knew what was said to me, and was more than once blamed by the men for idling my time. At last the hour to return aboard came. We marched down to the beach, and I felt relief for the first time when my feet rested on the schooner's. deck.

In the course of the evening I overheard part of a conversation between the captain and the first mate, which startled me not a little. They were down in the cabin, and conversed in an undertone, but the skylight being off, I overheard every word that was said.

"I don't half like it," said the mate. "It seems to me that we'll only have hard fightin' and no pay."

"No pay!" repeated the captain, in a voice of sup-