Even their hearts softened somewhat as they watched her erect in
the sinking boat, her face pallid, her fair hair shining in the
moonlight, but her lips set, her lovely eyes bent tearless on her
prostrate lover, her right hand, holding the blood-stained dagger,
hanging listlessly by her side.
Watching an opportunity, a stalwart youth seized her from behind and
pinned her arms. The next moment he himself was seized as if he were a
dog, and hurled into the water. The new combatant, whose arrival had so
effectually changed the aspect of affairs, was the hermit, who followed
up his first stroke by another still more decisive. Springing into the
pirate craft, wrenching a weapon from the grasp of the chief of the
assailants, he drove before him the three remaining men, terror-struck
at his sudden and inexplicable appearance, his superhuman size and
strength. One by one he swept them overboard; then grasping a huge
stone, which formed part of the ballast, he dashed it with the full
force of his gigantic strength through the planks of the boat, which at
once began to fill. All this was the work of a few moments.
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