Then came the poem.

’Ye heavenly powers! Stand by me when I die! The bee ascends before my rolling eye. Life still goes on within the heartless town. Dark forces claim my soul. So strike ‘em down. The sea will rise, the sea will fall. So turn Full circle. Turn again. And then will burn The lambent flames while hell will lift its head. So pray for me while I am numbered with the dead.’

Hornblower read through the turgid lines and puzzled over their obscure imagery. But he wondered if he would be able to write a single line that would make sense if he knew he was going to die in a few hours.

“The superscription is on the other side,” said McCool, and Hornblower turned the sheet over. The letter was addressed to the Widow McCool, in some street in Dublin. “Will you accept my word now?” asked McCool.

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

The horrible thing was done in the grey hours of the morning.

“Hands to witness punishment.”

The pipes twittered and the hands assembled in the waist, facing forward. The marines stood in lines across the deck. There were masses and masses of white faces, which Hornblower saw when he brought McCool up from below. There was a murmur when McCool appeared. Around the ship lay boats from all the rest of the fleet, filled with men — men sent to witness the punishment, but ready also to storm the ship should the crew stir. The chalk ring on the gangway, and McCool standing in it. The signal gun; the rush of feet as the ten hands heaved away on the line. And McCool died, as he had promised, without saying a word.

The body hung at the yardarm, and as the ship rolled in the swell that came round Berry Head, so the body swung and dangled, doomed to hang there until nightfall, while Hornblower, sick and pale, began to seek out a coaster which planned to call at Dublin from Brixham, so that he could fulfill his half of the bargain.