Then we relapsed into silence, and stood resting our arms over the bulwarks, gazing at the distant fire, in which I could picture plainly all the horrors and suggestions of the wrecked cabin.  I even seemed to see the yellow-faced wretches, all smeared with blood, dragging their victims to the stern windows.  And my imagination then ran riot for a time, as I fancied I saw them seizing men not half-dead, but making a feeble struggle for their lives, and begging in agonising tones for mercy, but only to be struck again, and pitched out into the sea.