Then he
moved towards the forepeak, which was hampered with
coils of rope and spare chandlery in general.
"Brown!" he said again.
"Here, sir," answered a shaking voice; and the poor
invisible caitiff called on him by name, and poured
forth out of the darkness an endless, garrulous appeal
for mercy. A sense of danger, of daring, had alone
nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was
the enemy crying and pleading like a frightened child.
His obsequious "Here, sir," his horrid fluency of
obtestation, made the murder tenfold more revolting.
Twice Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the
trigger (or thought he did) with all his might, but no
explosion followed; and with that the lees of his
courage ran quite out, and he turned and fled from
before his victim.
Wicks sat on the fore hatch, raised the face of a man
of seventy, and looked a wordless question. Carthew
shook his head. With such composure as a man displays
marching towards the gallows, Wicks arose, walked to
the scuttle, and went down. Brown thought it was
Carthew returning, and discovered himself, half-
crawling from his shelter, with another incoherent
burst of pleading.
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