“Now hear me,” said the boy, urging his request, to tears; “if not for my sake, or for your own sake, Mr. Barnstable, or for the hope of God's mercy, go into the boat, for the love of my cousin Katherine.” The young lieutenant paused in his troubled walk, and for a moment he cast a glance of hesitation at the cliffs; but, at the next instant, his eyes fell on the ruin of his vessel, and he answered: “Never, boy, never; if my hour has come, I will not shrink from my fate.” “Listen to the men, dear sir; the boat will be swamped, alongside the wreck, and their cry is, that without you they will not let her go.” Barnstable motioned to the boat, to bid the boy enter it, and turned away in silence. “Well,” said Merry, with firmness, “if it be right that a lieutenant shall stay by the wreck, it must also be right for a midshipman; shove off; neither Mr. Barnstable nor myself will quit the vessel.” “Boy, your life has been entrusted to my keeping, and at my hands will it be required,” said his commander, lifting the struggling youth, and tossing him into the arms of the seamen. “Away with ye, and God be with you; there is more weight in you now than can go safe to land.” Still the seamen hesitated, for they perceived the cockswain moving, with a steady tread, along the deck, and they hoped he had relented, and would yet persuade the lieutenant to join his crew. But Tom, imitating the example of his commander, seized the latter suddenly in his powerful grasp, and threw him over the bulwarks with an irresistible force. At the same moment he cast the fast of the boat from the pin that held it, and, lifting his broad hands high into the air, his voice was heard in the tempest: “God's will be done with me,” he cried. “I saw the first timber of the Ariel laid, and shall live just long enough to see it turn out of her bottom; after which I wish to live no longer.”