.

TO THE WATER'S EDGE.
It was not the new panic amidships that froze my marrow; it was not that the pinnace hung perpendicularly by the fore-tackle, and had shot out those who had swarmed aboard her before she was lowered, as a cart shoots a load of bricks.

It was bad enough to see the whole boat-load struggling, floundering, sinking in the sea; for selfish eyes (and which of us is all unselfish at such a time ?) there was a worse sight yet; for I saw all this across an impassable gulf of fire.
The quarter-deck had caught: it was in flames to port and starboard of the flaming hatch; only fore and aft of it was the deck sound to the lips of that hideous mouth, with the hundred tongues shooting out and up.
Could I jump it there?
I sprang down and looked.

It was only a few feet across; but to leap through that living fire was to leap into eternity.
I drew back instantly, less because my heart failed me, I may truly say, than because my common sense did not.
Some were watching me, it seemed, across this hell.

"The bulwarks!" they screamed.