My! how she burns." "Yes," assented Smith, as the barque, after smouldering so long, now blazed, as if eager to clear away all traces of the horrible tragedy.
"You'll recollect all about that cabin, Gnat, if we do get at the beggars--won't you ?" "Recollect ?" I said, with a shiver; "I shall never be able to forget it." Then we relapsed into silence, and stood resting our arms over the bulwarks, gazing at the distant fire, in which I could picture plainly all the horrors and suggestions of the wrecked cabin.

I even seemed to see the yellow-faced wretches, all smeared with blood, dragging their victims to the stern windows.

And my imagination then ran riot for a time, as I fancied I saw them seizing men not half-dead, but making a feeble struggle for their lives, and begging in agonising tones for mercy, but only to be struck again, and pitched out into the sea.
I fancy that I must have been growing half hysterical as the scene grew and grew before me, till I had pictured one poor wretch clinging in his despair to the edge of the stern window, and shrieking for help.

There was a curious sensation as if a ball was rising in my throat to choke me, and I was forgetting where I stood, when I was brought back to myself by the voice of my messmate Smith, who said in a husky whisper-- "Think we shall come across any of the poor fellows floating about ?" "Not likely," replied Barkins.

"Too many sharks in these seas." My throat felt dry at this horrible suggestion, but I knew how true it was.