Three hundred men and more upon that great
ship, and all dead!
Nay, not all, for now on the high poop stood a single figure who seemed
to wear a strange red head-dress, and about his shoulders a black robe.
Straight and silent he stood, a very fearful figure, and in his hand a
coil of rope. The sight of him sent those watchers mad. They ceased from
their whisperings, they raved aloud.
"It is Satan!" they shouted, "Satan, who comes to drag the folk of
Venice down to hell. Kill him ere he lands. Kill him!"
Even Grey Dick went mad like a dog when he meets a ghost. 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.
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