Their shouts of joy and diabolical laughter died away, and there was no sound but the lapping of the waves against the felucca’s side.  They had done their work thoroughly; not a moan arose from the heaps of butchered men, not a limb moved, but all were rigid, some lying in grotesque postures as the death agony had drawn them.  And after the tumult that had prevailed this stillness of death was terrific.  From looking over this ghastly picture I turned and clutched at Dawson’s hand for some comforting sense of life and humanity.

We were startled at this moment by a light laugh from the cabin, whither Mr. Godwin had carried Moll, fainting with the horror of this bloody business, and going in there we found her now lying in a little crib, light-headed,—­clean out of her wits indeed, for she fancied herself on the dusty road to Valencia, taking her first lesson in the fandango from Don Sanchez.  Mr. Godwin knelt by the cot side, with his arm supporting her head, and soothing her the best he could.  We found a little cask of water and a cup, that he might give her drink, and then, seeing we could be of no further service, Dawson and I went from the cabin, our thoughts awaking now to the peril of our position, without sail in mid-sea.

And first we cast our eyes all round about the sea, but we could descry no sail save the galley (and that at a great distance), nor any sign of land.  Next, casting our eyes upon the deck, we perceived that the thick stream of blood that lay along that side bent over by the broken mast, was greatly spread, and not so black, but redder, which was only to be explained by the mingling of water; and this was our first notice that the felucca was filling and we going down.

Recovering presently from the stupor into which this suspicion threw us, we pulled up a hatch, and looking down into the hold perceived that this was indeed true, a puncheon floating on the water there within arms’ reach.  Thence, making our way quickly over the dead bodies, which failed now to terrify us, to the fore part of our felucca, we discovered that the shot which had hit us had started a plank, and that the water leaked in with every lap of a wave.  So now, our wits quickened by our peril, we took a scimitar and a dirk from a dead janizary, to cut away the cordage that lashed us to the fallen mast, to free us of that burden and right the ship if we might.  But ere we did this, Dawson, spying the great sail lying out on the water, bethought him to hack out a great sheet as far as we could reach, and this he took to lay over the started plank and staunch the leakage, while I severed the tackle and freed us from the great weight of the hanging mast and long spar.  And certainly we thought ourselves safe when this was done, for the hull lifted at once and righted itself upon the water.  Nevertheless, we were not easy, for we knew not what other planks below the water line were injured, nor how to sink our sheet or bind it over the faulty part.  So, still further