Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/136

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DOCTOR SYN

And as he sang he danced, and stamped the senseless face beneath his feet; and then he sang again, roaring new words to the eternal old tune:

"A pound of gunshot tied to his feet,
And a ragged bit of sail for a winding sheet;
Then out to the sharks with a horrible splash,
And that's the end of Mr. Rash."

And with diabolical glee he leaped again, and landed with both feet upon the victim's face.

All this time the girl stood still. Like a statue she stood, with the candle high above her head; and the terrible cleric went on with the song: new words, but still a corruption of the same old tune, which he roared and screamed in the very whirlwind of his uncontrolled madness:

"And all that isn't ripped by the sharks outside
Stands up again upon its feet upon the running tide."

Taking the prostrate body, he lifted it on to its feet and leered into its face; then letting go of it, he watched it fall and collapse in a heap.

"And it kept a-bowing gently and a-looking with surprise
At the little crabs a-scrambling from the sockets of its eyes."

The captain then shouted, shouted at the top of his voice, and tore at the fast, firm shutter. The song ceased in the room. The light once more went out of the jagged hole, and there was the noise of a falling