His pale hair rose upon his head, his cold, quiet eyes started.

He set an arrow on the string of the black bow, drew it to his ear and loosed at the figure on the poop.

But that arrow never left the string; it shattered to flinders where it was and fell tinkling to the marble floor.

Only the barb of it turned and wounded Grey Dick in the chin, yes, and stuck there for a while, for his right arm was numbed so that he could not lift his hand to pull it forth.
"Truly, I have shot at the Fiend and hit that at which I did not aim," muttered Grey Dick, and sat himself down on a post of the quay to consider the matter.

Only, as it seemed to him, he who stood on the poop of the ship not ten yards away smiled a little.
Unheeding of the clamour, this man upon the poop suddenly lifted the coil of rope and threw it shoreward.