The fire now reaches to
the cabin occupied by Mrs. Kear, who, shrieking wildly, is
brought on deck by Miss Herbey. A moment more, and Silas Huntly
makes his appearance, his face all blackened with the grimy
smoke; he bows to Curtis, as he passes, and then proceeds in the
calmest manner to mount the aft-shrouds, and installs himself at
the very top of the mizen.
The sight of Huntly recalls to my recollection the prisoner still
below, and my first impulse is to rush to the staircase and do
what I can to set him free. But the maniac has already eluded
his confinement, and with singed hair and his clothes already
alight, rushes upon deck. Like a salamander he passes across the
burning deck with unscathed feet, and glides through the stifling
smoke with unchoked breath. Not a sound escapes his lips.
Another loud report; the long-boat is shivered into fragments;
the middle panel bursts the tarpaulin that covered it, and a
stream of fire, free at length from the restraint that had held
it, rises half-mast high.
"The picrate! the picrate!" shrieks the madman; "we shall all
be blown up! the picrate will blow us all up."
And in an instant, before we can get near him, he has hurled
himself, through the open hatchway, down into the fiery furnace
below.
CHAPTER XIV.
OCTOBER 29th:--NIGHT.--The scene, as night came on, was terrible
indeed. Notwithstanding the desperateness of our situation,
however, there was not one of us so paralyzed by fear, but that
we fully realized the horror of it all.
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