I was on the summit of one swell when the schooner came stooping over the next . The bowsprit was over my head . I sprang to my feet and leaped , stamping the coracle under water . With one hand I caught the jib-boom , while my foot was lodged between the stay and the brace ; and as I still clung there panting , a dull blow told me that the schooner had charged down upon and struck the coracle and that I was left without retreat on the HISPANIOLA . 25 I Strike the Jolly Roger I HAD scarce gained a position on the bowsprit when the flying jib flapped and filled upon the other tack , with a report like a gun . The schooner trembled to her keel under the reverse , but next moment , the other sails still drawing , the jib flapped back again and hung idle . This had nearly tossed me off into the sea ; and now I lost no time , crawled back along the bowsprit , and tumbled head foremost on the deck . I was on the lee side of the forecastle , and the mainsail , which was still drawing , concealed from me a certain portion of the after-deck . Not a soul was to be seen . The planks , which had not been swabbed since the mutiny , bore the print of many feet , and an empty bottle , broken by the neck , tumbled to and fro like a live thing in the scuppers . Suddenly the HISPANIOLA came right into the wind . The jibs behind me cracked aloud , the rudder slammed to , the whole ship gave a sickening heave and shudder , and at the same moment the main-boom swung inboard , the sheet groaning in the blocks , and showed me the lee after-deck . There were the two watchmen , sure enough : red-cap on his back , as stiff as a handspike , with his arms stretched out like those of a crucifix and his teeth showing through his open lips ; Israel Hands propped against the bulwarks , his chin on his chest , his hands lying open before him on the deck , his face as white , under its tan , as a tallow candle . For a while the ship kept bucking and sidling like a vicious horse , the sails filling , now on one tack , now on another , and the boom swinging to and fro till the mast groaned aloud under the strain . Now and again too there would come a cloud of light sprays over the bulwark and a heavy blow of the ship 's bows against the swell ; so much heavier weather was made of it by this great rigged ship than by my home-made , lop-sided coracle , now gone to the bottom of the sea . At every jump of the schooner , red-cap slipped to and fro , but -- what was ghastly to behold -- neither his attitude nor his fixed teeth-disclosing grin was anyway disturbed by this rough usage . At every jump too , Hands appeared still more to sink into himself and settle down upon the deck , his feet sliding ever the farther out , and the whole body canting towards the stern , so that his face became , little by little , hid from me ; and at last I could see nothing beyond his ear and the frayed ringlet of one whisker . At the same time , I observed , around both of them , splashes of dark blood upon the planks and began to feel sure that they had killed each other in their drunken wrath . While I was thus looking and wondering , in a calm moment , when the ship was still , Israel Hands turned partly round and with a low moan writhed himself back to the position in which I had seen him first . The moan , which told of pain and deadly weakness , and the way in which his jaw hung open went right to my heart .
But when I remembered the talk I had overheard from the apple barrel , all pity XXXXX me .
HISPANIOLA Israel bowsprit first forecastle fro jibs left scuppers teeth-disclosing