Happening to bend my gaze down upon the raft, into some interstice close
against where the hatch-cover was secured, I spied what, for the
moment, I might have supposed a pair of glow-worms, minute, but defined
enough. Then I believed there was a little pool of water there, and that
it reflected a couple of stars. A moment after I guessed what it was,
and in a very frenzy of the superstition that had been stirring in me,
and in many directions of thought influencing me from the moment of my
leaving the barque, I had my hand upon the great rat--for that was what
it was--and sent it flying overboard. I remember the wild squeak of the
thing as I hurled it--you would have supposed it the cry of a distant
gull. There was a little fire in the water, and I could see where it
swam, and all very quietly I seized hold of a loose plank and, waiting
till it had come near, I hit it, and kept on hitting it, till I might be
sure it was drowned.