Treasure Island

CHAPTER XXYI1"PIECES OF EIGHT"oWING to the cant of the vessel, the masts hung fakout over the water, and from my perch on the crosstreesI had nothing below me but the surface of thebay. Hands, who was not so far up, was, in consequence,nearer to the ship,and fell between me and the bulwarks. Herose once to the surface in a lather of foam and blood, and thensank again for good. As the water settled, I could see himlying huddled together on the clean, bright sand in theshadow of the vessel's sides. A fish or two whipped past hisbody. Sometimes, by the quivering of the water, he appearedto move a little, as if he were trying to rise. But he was deadenough, for all that, being both shot and drowned, and wasfood for fish in the very place where he had designed myslaughter.I was no sooner certain of thisfaint, and terrified.than I began to feel sick,The hot blood was running over my backand chest. The dirk, where it had pinned my shoulder tothe mast, seemed to burn like a hot iron; yetit was not somuch these real sufferings that distressed me, for these, itseemed to me, I could bear wuthout a murmur;it was thehorror I had upon my mind of falling from the cross-treesinto that stillgreen ater beside the body of the coxswain.wrE205]