In the horrid pain and surprise of the moment -- I scarce can say it was by my own volition , and I am sure it was without a conscious aim -- both my pistols went off , and both escaped out of my hands . They did not fall alone ; with a choked cry , the coxswain loosed his grasp upon the shrouds and plunged head first into the water . 27 `` Pieces of Eight '' OWING to the cant of the vessel , the masts hung far out over the water , and from my perch on the cross-trees I had nothing below me but the surface of the bay . Hands , who was not so far up , was in consequence nearer to the ship and fell between me and the bulwarks . He rose once to the surface in a lather of foam and blood and then sank again for good . As the water settled , I could see him lying huddled together on the clean , bright sand in the shadow of the vessel 's sides . A fish or two whipped past his body . Sometimes , by the quivering of the water , he appeared to move a little , as if he were trying to rise . But he was dead enough , for all that , being both shot and drowned , and was food for fish in the very place where he had designed my slaughter . I was no sooner certain of this than I began to feel sick , faint , and terrified . The hot blood was running over my back and chest . The dirk , where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast , seemed to burn like a hot iron ; yet it was not so much these real sufferings that distressed me , for these , it seemed to me , I could bear without a murmur ; it was the horror I had upon my mind of falling from the cross-trees into that still green water , beside the body of the coxswain . I clung with both hands till my nails ached , and I shut my eyes as if to cover up the peril . Gradually my mind came back again , my pulses quieted down to a more natural time , and I was once more in possession of myself . It was my first thought to pluck forth the dirk , but either it stuck too hard or my nerve failed me , and I desisted with a violent shudder . Oddly enough , that very shudder did the business . The knife , in fact , had come the nearest in the world to missing me altogether ; it held me by a mere pinch of skin , and this the shudder tore away . The blood ran down the faster , to be sure , but I was my own master again and only tacked to the mast by my coat and shirt . These last I broke through with a sudden jerk , and then regained the deck by the starboard shrouds . For nothing in the world would I have again ventured , shaken as I was , upon the overhanging port shrouds from which Israel had so lately fallen .
I XXXXX below and did what I could for my wound ; it pained me a good deal and still bled freely , but it was neither deep nor dangerous , nor did it greatly gall me when I used my arm .
am being broke escaped falling loosed overhanging sank seemed went