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 went 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 . Then I looked around me , and as the ship was now , in a sense , my own , I began to think of clearing it from its last passenger -- the dead man , O'Brien . He had pitched , as I have said , against the bulwarks , where he lay like some horrible , ungainly sort of puppet , life-size , indeed , but how different from life 's colour or life 's comeliness ! In that position I could easily have my way with him , and as the habit of tragical adventures had worn off almost all my terror for the dead , I took him by the waist as if he had been a sack of bran and with one good heave , tumbled him overboard . He went in with a sounding plunge ; the red cap came off and remained floating on the surface ; and as soon as the splash subsided , I could see him and Israel lying side by side , both wavering with the tremulous movement of the water .
XXXXX , though still quite a young man , was very bald .
Israel O'Brien bulwarks colour comeliness cross-trees dirk drowned first pulses