A shadow of
spread sails, deeper than the darkening twilight, brooding over us like
the wings of Azrael (Pyecroft said she was a Swede), and, miraculously
withdrawn, persuaded me that there was a working chance that I should
reach the beach--any beach--alive, if not dry; and (this was when an
economical tramp laved our port-rail with her condenser water) were I so
spared, I vowed I would tell my tale worthily.
Thus we floated in space as souls drift through raw time. Night added
herself to the fog, and I laid hold on my limbs jealously, lest they, too,
should melt in the general dissolution.
"Where's that prevaricatin' fishmonger?" said Pyecroft, turning a lantern
on a scant yard of the gleaming wire-rope that pointed like a stick to my
left. "He's doin' some fancy steerin' on his own. No wonder Mr.
Hincheliffe is blasphemious. The tow's sheered off to starboard, Sir.
He'll fair pull the stern out of us."
Moorshed, invisible, cursed through the megaphone into invisibility.
"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice butted through the fog with the
monotonous insistence of a strayed sheep's. "We don't all like the road
you'm takin'. 'Tis no road to Brixham. You'll be buckled up under Prawle
Point by'mbye."
"Do you pretend to know where you are?" the megaphone roared.
"Iss, I reckon; but there's no pretence to me!"
"O Peter!" said Pyecroft. "Let's hang him at 'is own gaff.
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