Up, up they go, pursued and pursuers, until they reach the main-royal-stay; but only one boy followed then, the others hung on to the rigging and watched the sport; they were afraid to go on, the man's eyes glared so. Dunstable saw at a glance if he could only get across he would be safe from his persecutors. Away he clambered up the stay, hand over hand and foot over foot, like an experienced sailor. The men below turned the quids in their cheeks, and observed to each other that "he warn't sich a darned fool arter all, you know, as he could get about aloft like a regler knowin one." But suddenly he stopped. His right leg slid from the stay, and hung helplessly down; soon the left followed, and he dangled aloft, holding on by his long, lean, sinewless arms. A groan of horror burst from the crew. "He'll fall! O God, he'll fall!!" said Clare, who, roused out by the noise, had come on deck. All eyes were strained towards the poor wretch, who now began to show signs of total exhaustion. With a fearful wail he let go one hand, and swayed, with the weight of his body entirely thrown upon the other; then suddenly he released his grasp, and shot down towards the deck. Those who could bear to look saw him strike the main-top-gallant-stay, turn over twice in his descent, and fall across the bridge. Up sprang Clare, and tenderly he lifted the now broken form of the wretched idiot. Crushe, with livid face and trembling lips, asked him if the man was dead. Tom could not reply. He was too indignant to trust himself to speak; but giving the lieutenant a look of scorn, he raised the body in his powerful arms, and reclining the inanimate head upon his shoulder as gently as a woman would have laid her babe's, bore his mangled burden to the surgery. The little doctor did his utmost to save the man's life,--amputation of one limb was resorted to, but all without avail. Crushe ordered a screen to be placed across the steerage, and every few moments went to know "how the fellow got on." But the end was not far off. Maimed by accident or design, mutilated by the surgeon's art, weak and weary, the spirit of Dunstable would have passed away without a struggle, but Crushe came down; and when he saw his enemy standing before him with no sign of pity, but rather a contemptuous expression upon his cruel face, the victim raised his head, and with his eyes gleaming with unnatural brightness, gasped out, "_You_ did this, you monster! _you_ did this; tell my mother _he_ murdered me!" Then, with a terrible convulsion, the muscles of his body trembled, and the soul of the idiot passed to the other world, where, we are told, "there will be no more sorrow, nor any trouble known, no more misery or injustice, but all will be joy and peace."