And then fancy played another trick on me, and I seemed to see a man
lying on the cave-floor with a drawn white face upturned, and a red hole
in the forehead; and at last could bear the dark no longer, but got up
with my lame leg and groped round till I found a candle, for we had two
or three in store. 'Twas only with much ado I got it lit and set up in
the corner of the cave, and then I sat down close by trying to screen it
with my coat. But do what I would the wind came gusting round the corner,
blowing the flame to one side, and making the candle gutter as another
candle guttered on that black day at the Why Not? And so thought whisked
round till I saw Maskew's face wearing a look of evil triumph, when the
pin fell at the auction, and again his face grew deadly pale, and there
was the bullet-mark on his brow.
Surely there were evil spirits in this place to lead my thoughts so much
astray, and then there came to my mind that locket on my neck, which men
had once hung round Blackbeard's to scare evil spirits from his tomb. If
it could frighten them from him, might it not rout them now, and make
them fly from me? And with that thought I took the parchment out, and
opening it before the flickering light, although I knew all, word for
word, conned it over again, and read it out aloud. It was a relief to
hear a human voice, even though 'twas nothing but my own, and I took to
shouting the words, having much ado even so to make them heard for the
raging of the storm:
'The days of our age are threescore years and ten; and though men be so
strong that they come to fourscore years: yet is their strength then but
labour and sorrow; so soon passeth it away, and we are gone.
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