Chapter 3 of the Nigger of the Narcissus Meanwhile the Narcissus, with square yards, ran out of the pheromone soon. She drifted slowly, swinging round and round the compass, through a few days of baffling light errors. Under the pattern of short, warm showers, grumbling men, whirled the heavy yards from side to side. They caught hold of the soaked ropes with groans and sighs, while their officers, sulky and dripping with rainwater, unceasingly ordered them about in wearied voices. During the short respites they looked with disgust into the smarting palms of their stiff hands and asked one another bitterly, who would be a sailor if he could be a farmer? All the tempers were spoiled, and no man cared what he said. One black night, when the watch, panning in the heat and half-drowned with the rain, had been through four mortal hours hunted from brace to brace, Belfast declared that he would chuck the sea forever and go in his steamer. This was excessive, no doubt. Captain Olliston, with great self-control, would mutter sadly to Mr. Baker. It is not so bad, not so bad, when he had managed to shove and dodge and maneuver his smart ship through sixty miles in twenty-four hours. From the doorstep of the little cabin, Jimmy, chin in hand, watched our distasteful labors with insolent and melancholy eyes. We spoke to him gently, and out of his sight exchanged sour smiles. Then, again, with a fair wind and under a clear sky, the ship went on piling up the south latitude. She passed outside Madagascar and Maratius without a glimpse of the land. Extra lashings were put on the spare spars. Hatches were looked to. The steward and his leisure moments, and with a worried air, tried to fit washboards to the cabin doors. Stout canvas was bent with care. Anxious eyes looked to the westward towards the Cape of Storms. The ship began to dip into a southwest swell, and the softly luminous sky of low latitudes took on a harder sheen from day to day above our heads. It arched high above the ship, vibrating in pale, like an immense dome of steel, resonant with the deep voice of freshening gales. The sunshine gleamed cold on the white curls of black waves. Before the strong breath of westerly squalls, the ship, with reduced sails, lay slowly over, obstinate and yielding. She drove to and fro in the unceasing endeavor to fight her way through the invisible violence of the winds. She pitched headlong into dark smooth hollows. She struggled upwards over the snowy ridges of great running seas. She rolled, restless from side to side like a thane in pain. Enduring and valiant, she answered to the call of men, and her swim spars, waving forever in abrupt semicircles, seemed to beckon in vain for help towards the stormy sky. It was a bad winter off the Cape that year. The relieved helmsman came off flapping her arms, or ran stamping hard and blowing into swollen red fingers. The watch on deck dodged the sting of cold sprays, or crouching in sheltered corners, watched dismally the high and merciless seas boarding the ship time after time in unappeasable fury. Water tumbled in cataracts over the folksal doors. You had to dash through a waterfall to get into your damp bed. The men turned in wet and turned out stiff, to face the redeeming and ruthless ex-actions of their glorious and obscure fate. Far aft and peering watchfully to windward, the officers could be seen through the mists of squalls. They stood by the weather rail, holding on grimly, straight and glistening in their long coats. And in the disordered plunges of the hard-drawn ship, they appeared high up, a tenive tossing violently above the gray line of a clouded horizon in motionless attitudes. They watched the weather and the ship as men on shore watched the momentous chances of fortune. Captain Olliston never left the deck, as though he had been part of the ship's fittings. Now and then the steward, shivering, but always in shirt-sleeves, would struggle towards him with some hot coffee, half of which the gale blew out of the cup before it reached the master's lips. He drank what was left gravely in one long gulp, while the heavy sprays powdered loudly on his oil skin coat. The sea's swishing broke about his high boots, and he never took his eyes off the ship. He kept his gaze riveted upon her as a loving man watches the unselfish toil of a delicate woman upon the slender thread of whose existence has hung the whole meaning and joy of the world. We all watched her. She was beautiful and had a weakness. We loved her no less for that. We admired her qualities aloud. We boasted of them to one another, as though they had been our own, and the consciousness of her only fault we kept buried in the silence of our profound affection. She was born in the thundering peel of hammers beading upon iron, in black eddies of smoke under a gray sky, on the banks of the Clyde. The clamorous and somber stream gives birth to thanes of beauty that float away into the sunshine of the world to be loved by men, that our sissies was one of that perfect brood. Less perfect than many, perhaps, but she was ours and consequently incomparable. We were proud of her. In Bombay ignorant land-lovers alluded to her as that pretty gray ship. Pretty! A scurvy mead of commendation. We knew she was the most magnificent sea-boat ever launched. We tried to forget that, like many good sea-boats. She was at times rather crank. She was exacting. She wanted care in loading and handling, and no one knew exactly how much care would be enough. Such are the imperfections of mere men. The ship knew, and sometimes would correct, the presumptuous human ignorance by the wholesome discipline of fear. We had heard ominous stories about past voyages. The cook, technically a seaman, but in reality no sailor. The cook, when unstung by some misfortune, such as the rolling over of a saucepan, would mutter gloomily while he wiped the floor. There! Look at what she has done! Some voyage she will drown all hands. You'll see if she won't. To which the steward, snatching in the galley a moment to draw a breath in the hurry of his worried life, would remark philosophically. Those that see won't tell, anyhow. I don't want to see it. We derided those fears. Our hearts went out to the old man when he pressed her hard so as to make her hold her own. Hold to every inch gained to winward, when he made her under reef sales leap obliquely at enormous waves. The men knitted together aft into a ready group by the first sharp order of an officer coming to take charge of the deck in bad weather. Keep handy, the watch! Stood admiring her valiance. Their eyes blinked in the wind. Their dark faces were wet with drops of water, more salt and bitter than human tears. Beards and moustaches soaked, hung straight and dripping like fine seaweed. They were fantastically misshapen in high boots, in hats like helmets, and swaying clumsily, stiff and bulky and glistening oil skins. They resembled men strangely equipped for some fabulous adventure. Whenever she rose easily to a towering green sea, elbows dug ribs, faces brightened, lips murmured, didn't she do it cleverly? In all the hands turning like one, watching with sardonic grins the foiled wave go roaring till leeward, white with the foam of a monstrous rage. But when she had not been quick enough and struck heavily, lay over trembling under the blow, we clutched at ropes and, looking up at the narrow bands of drenched and strained sails, waving desperately aloft, we thought in our hearts, no wonder, poor thing. The thirty-second day out of Bombay began inauspiciously. In the morning a sea smashed one of the galley doors. We dashed in through lots of steam and found the cook very wet and indignant with the ship. She's getting worse every day.  He was very angry. We pacified him and the carpenter, though washed away twice from there, managed to repair the door. Through that accident our dinner was not ready till late, but it didn't matter in the end because Knowles, who went to fetch it, got knocked down by a sea and the dinner went over the side. Captain Alliston, looking more hard and thin-lipped than ever, hung on to full top sails and foresail, and would not notice that the ship, asked to do too much, appeared to lose heart altogether for the first time since we knew her. She refused to rise and board her way sullenly through the seas. Twice running, as though she had been blind or weary of life, she put her nose deliberately into a big wave and swept the decks from end to end. As the boson observed with marked annoyance, while we were splashing about in a body to try and save a worthless wash tub, every bloomin' thing in the ship is going overboard this afternoon. Venerable Singleton broke his habitual silence and said with a glance aloft, the old man's in a temper with the weather, but it's no good bein' angry with the winds of heaven. Jimmy had shut his door, of course. We knew he was dry and comfortable within his little cabin, and in our absurd way were pleased one moment exasperated the next by that certitude. Duncan sculpted shamelessly, uneasy and miserable.  We took no notice of him. We hardly gave a thought to Jimmy and his bosom friend. There was no leisure for idle probing of hearts. Sales blew adrift. Things broke loose. Cold and wet we were washed about the deck while trying to repair damages. The ship tossed about shaken furiously like a toy in the hands of a lunatic. Just at sunset there was a rush to shorten sail before the menace of a somber hail cloud. The hard gust of wind came brutal like the blow of a fist. The ship, relieved of her canvas in time, received it pluckily. She yielded reluctantly to the violent onset, then coming up with a stately and irresistible motion, brought her spars to windward in the teeth of the screeching squall. Out of the abysmal darkness of the black cloud overhead, white hail streamed on her, rattled on the rigging, leaped in handfuls off the yards, rebounded on the deck, round and gleaming in the murky turmoil like a shower of pearls. It passed away. For a moment a livid sun shot horizontally the last rays of sinister light between the hills of steep, rolling waves. Then a wild night rushed in, stamped out in a great howl that dismal remnant of a stormy day. There was no sleep on board that night. Most seamen remember in their life one or two such nights of a culminating gale. Nothing seems left to the whole universe but darkness, clamor, fury, and the ship. And like the last vestige of a shattered creation she drifts, bearing an anguished remnant of sinful mankind through the distress, tumult, and pain of an avenging terror, no one slept in the folk soul. The tin oil lamps suspended on a long string, smoking, described wide circles. Wet clothing made dark heaps on the glistening floor. A thin layer of water rushed to and fro. In the bedplaces men lay booted, resting on elbows and with open eyes. Hung-up suits of oil skin swung out and in, lively and disquieting, like reckless ghosts of decapitated seamen dancing in a tempest. No one spoke, and all listened. Outside the night moaned and sobbed to the accompaniment of a continuous loud tremor as of innumerable drums beating far off. Shrieks passed through the air. Tremendous dull blows made the ship tremble while she rolled under the weight of the seas toppling on her deck.   Now and then, for the fraction of an intolerable second, the ship, in fiercer burst of a more terrible uproar, remained on her side, vibrating and still, with the stillness more appalling than the wildest motion. Then upon all those prone bodies a stir would pass, a shiver of suspense.  Some moved their legs a little as if making ready to jump out. But several motionless on their backs and with one hand gripping hard the edge of the bunk, smoked nervously with quick puffs, staring upwards, immobilized in a great craving for peace. At midnight orders were given to furl the fore and mizentop sails. With immense efforts men crawled aloft through a merciless buffeting, saved the canvas and crawled down again almost exhausted to bear in panting silence the cruel battering of the sea. Perhaps for the first time in the history of the merchant service the watch, told to go below, did not leave the deck, as if compelled to remain there by the fascination of a feminist violence. At every heavy gust men, huddled together, whispered to one another, it can blow no harder.  A fierce squall seemed to burst asunder the thick mass of sooty vapors, and above the rack of torn clouds glimpses could be caught of the high moon rushing backwards with frightful speed over the sky, right into the wind's eye. Many hung their heads muttering that it turned their innards out to look at it. Soon the clouds closed up and the world again became a raging, blind darkness that howled, flinging at the lonely ship salt sprays and sleet. At half past seven the pitchy obscurity round us turned aghastly gray, and we knew that the sun had risen. This unnatural and threatening daylight in which we could see one another's wild eyes and drawn faces was only an added tax on our endurance. The horizon seemed to have come on all sides within arm's length of the ship. Into that narrowed circle furious seas leaped in, struck, and leaped out. A rain of salt, heavy drops, flew as slant like mist. The main top sail had to be goose-winged, and with stalled resignation everyone prepared to go aloft once more. But the officers yelled, pushed back, and at last we understood that no more men would be allowed to go on the yards, than were absolutely necessary for the work. As at any moment the masks were likely to be jumped out or blown overboard. We concluded that the captain didn't want to see all his crowd go over the side at once. That was reasonable. The watch then on duty, led by Mr. Crichton, began to struggle up the rigging. The wind flattened them against the rat-lines, then easy no little, would let them ascend a couple of steps, and again, with a sudden gust, pinned all up the shrouds, the whole crawling line and attitudes of crucifixion. The other watch plunged down on the main deck to haul up the sail. Men's heads bobbed up as the water flung them irresistibly from side to side. Mr. Baker grunted, encouragingly, in our midst, spluttering and blowing amongst the tangled ropes like an energetic porpoise. Favored by an ominous and untrustworthy lull, the work was done without anyone being lost either off the deck or from the yard. For the moment the gale seemed to take off and the ship, as if grateful for our efforts, plucked up heart and made better weather of it. At eight, the men off duty, watching their chance, ran forward over the flooded deck to get some rest. The other half of the crew remained aft for their turn obscene her through her trouble, as they expressed it. The two maids urged the master to go below. Mr. Baker grunted in his ear, "'Ock, surely now! Ock! Confidence in us! Nothing more to do! She must lay it out or go! Ock, ock!' Tall young Mr. Crichton smiled down at him cheerfully. She says, right as the trivet, take a spell, sir. He looked at them stonely, with bloodshot, sleepless eyes. The rims of his eyelids were scarlet, and he moved his jaws unceasingly with his slow effort, as though he had been masticating a lump of India rubber. He shook his head. He repeated, "'Never mind me. I must see it out. I must see it out.' But he consented to sit down for a moment on the skylight, with his hard face turned unflinchingly to windward. The sea spattered it, and stoical, as dreamed with water, as though he had been weeping. On the weather side of the poop, the watch, hanging on to the mizzen rigging, and to one another, tried to exchange encouraging words. Singleton, at the wheel, yelled out, Look out for yourselves. His voice reached them in a warning whisper. They were startled. A big foaming sea came out of the mist. It made for the ship roaring wildly. And in its rush it looked as mischievous and discomposing as a madman with an axe. One or two, shouting, scrambled up the rigging. Most with a convulsive catch of the breath, held on where they stood. Singleton dug his knees under the wheel-box, and carefully eased the helm to the headlong pitch of the ship, but without taking his eyes off the coming wave. It towered close to and high, like a wall of green glass topped with snow. The ship rose to it as though she had soared on wings, and for a moment rested poised upon the foaming crest as if she had been a great sea bird. Before we could draw breath, a heavy gust struck her. Another roller took her unfairly under the weather-bowl. She gave a toppling lurch and filled her decks. Captain Alliston leaped up and fell. Archie rolled over him, screaming, She will rise. She gave another lurch to Leeward. The lower dead eyes dipped heavily. The men's feet flew from under them, and they hung kicking above the slanting poop. They could see the ship putting her side in the water, and shouted altogether, She's going. Forward the folksal doors flew open, and the watch below were seen leaping out one after another, throwing their arms up, and, falling on hands and knees, scrambled aft on all fours along the high side of the deck, sloughing more than the roof of a house. From Leeward the seas rose, pursuing them. They looked wretched in a hopeless struggle, like vermin fleeing before a flood. They fought up the weather-ladder of the poop one after another, half-naked and staring wildly, and as soon as they got up they shot to Leeward in clusters, with closed eyes, till they brought up heavily with their ribs against the iron stanchions of the rail. Then, groaning, they rolled in a confused mass. The immense volume of water thrown forward by the last descent of the ship had burst the lee door of the folksal. They could see their chests, pillows, blankets, clothing come out floating upon the sea. While they struggled back to windward they looked in dismay. The straw beds swam high, the blankets spread out undulated, while the chests, water lugged in with a heavy list, pitched heavily like dismasted hulks before they sank. Archie's big coat passed with outspread arms resembling the drowned seaman floating with his head underwater. Men were slipping down while trying to dig their fingers into the planks. Others jammed in corners, rolled enormous eyes. They all yelled unceasingly, the masks. Got, got! A black squall held low over the ship that lay on her side with the weather-yard arms pointing to the clouds, while the tall masks inclined nearly to the horizon seemed to be of an immeasurable length. The carpenter let go as hold, rolled against the skylight, and began to crawl to the cabin entrance, where a big axe was kept ready for just such an emergency. At that moment the top sail sheet parted, the end of the heavy chain racketed aloft, and sparks of red fire streamed down through the flying sprays. The sail flapped once with a jerk that seemed to tear our hearts out through our teeth, and instantly changed into a bunch of fluttering, narrow ribbons that tied themselves into knots and became quiet along the yard. Captain Alliston struggled, managed to stand up with his face near the deck, upon which men swung on the ends of ropes, like nest robbers upon a cliff. One of his feet was on somebody's chest, his face was purple, his lips moved. He yelled also. He yelled, bending down, No! No! Mr. Baker, one leg over the bedinkle stand, roared out, Did you say no? Not cut? He shook his head madly. No! No! Between his legs the crawling carpenter heard, collapsed at once, and lay full length in the angle of the skylight. The voices took up the shout, No! No! Then all became still. They waited for the ship to turn over altogether and shake them out into the sea, and upon the terrific noise of wind and sea not a murmur of remonstrance came out from those men who each would have given ever so many years of life to see them damn sticks go overboard.  They were silent and gasped. They gripped rails, they had wound ropes ends under their arms, they clutched ring bolts, they crawled in heaps where there was foothold, they held on with both arms, hooked themselves to anything to windward with elbows, with chins, almost with their teeth, and some, unable to crawl away from where they had been flung, felt the seas leap up, striking against their backs as they struggled upwards. Singleton had stuck to the wheel. His hair flew out in the wind, the gale seemed to take his lifelong adversary by the beard and shake his old head. He wouldn't let go, and with his knees forced between the spokes flew up and down like a man on a bow. As death appeared unready, they began to look about. Donken, caught by one foot in the loop of some rope, hung head down below us and yelled with his face to the deck, Cut! Cut! Two men lowered themselves cautiously to him, others hauled on the rope. They caught him up, shoved him into a safer place, held him.  Don't mind that murdering fool, Cut! Some of you.   On the lee side another man could be seen stretched out as if stunned. Only the washboard prevented him from going over the side. It was the steward. We had to sling him up like a bale for he was paralyzed with fright. He had rushed up out of the pantry when he felt the ship go over, and had rolled down helplessly clutching a china mug. It was not broken. With difficulty we tore it away from him, and when he saw it in her hands he was amazed. Where did you get that thing? He kept on asking us in a trembling voice. His shirt was blown to shreds. The ripped sleeves flapped like wings. Two men made him fast, and doubled over the rope that held him. He resembled a bundle of wet rags. Mr. Baker crawled along the line of men, asking, Are you all there? And looking them over. Some blinked vacantly, others shook convulsively.  Their lips twitched, and at every sickening heave of the overturned ship they opened them wide as if to shout. The cook, embracing a wooden stanchion, unconsciously repeated a prayer. In every short interval of the fiendish noises around he could be heard there, without cap or slippers, employing in that storm the master of our lives not to lead him into temptation. Soon he also became silent. In all that crowd of cold and hungry men waiting woorily for a violent death, not a voice was heard, they were mute, and in somber thoughtfulness listened to the horrible implications of the gale. 3 Hours passed. They were sheltered by the heavy inclination of the ship from the wind that rushed in one long unbroken moan above their heads, but cold rain showers fell at times into the uneasy calm of their refuge. Under the torment of that new infliction a pair of shoulders would dry the little. Teeth chattered. The sky was clearing, and bright sunshine gleamed over the ship. After every burst of battering seas, vivid and fleeting rainbows arched over the drifting hull in the flick of sprays. The gale was ending in a clear blow, which gleamed and cut like a knife. Between two bearded shellbacks, Charlie, fastened with somebody's long muffler to a deck ring-bolt, wept quietly, with rare tears wrung out by bewilderment, cold, hunger, and general misery. One of his neighbors punched him in the ribs, asking roughly, What's the matter with your cheek? And find whether there's no holding you, youngster. Turning about with prudence, he worked himself out of his coat, and threw it over the boy. The other man closed up, muttering, Twelmecha, bloomin' men of you, sonny. They flung their arms over and pressed against him. Charlie drew his feet up, and his eyelids dropped. Size were heard as men, perceiving that they were not to be drowned in the hurry, tried easier positions. Mr. Crichton, who had heard his leg, lay amongst us with compressed lips. Some fellows belonging to his watch set about securing him better. Without a word or a glance, he lifted his arms, one above another, to facilitate the operation, and not a muscle moved in a stern, young face. They asked him with solicitude. Easier now, sir? He answered with a curt. That'll do. He was a hard young officer, but many of his watch used to say they liked him well enough, because he had such a gentlemanly way of damminess up and down the deck. Others, unable to discern such fine shades of refinement, respected him for his smartness. For the first time since the ship had gone on her beam ends, Captain Olliston gave a short glance down at his men. He was almost upright, one foot against the side of the skylight, one knee on the deck, and with the end of the vang round his waist swung back and forth with his gaze fixed ahead, watchful, like a man looking out for a sign. Before his eyes the ship, with half her deck underwater, rose and fell on heavy seas that rushed from under her, flashing in the cold sunshine. We began to think she was wonderfully buoyant, considering. Confident voices were heard shouting, She'll do, boys. Belfast exclaimed with fervor, I would get a month's pay for a draw at a pipe. One or two passing dry tongues on their salt lips muttered something about a drink of water. The cook, as if inspired, scrambled up with his breast against the poop water cask and looked in. There was a little at the bottom. He yelled, wavy in his arms, and two men began to crawl backwards and forwards with the mug. We had a good mouthful all round.  When it came to Charlie, one of his neighbors shouted, That bloomin' boy's asleep. He slept as though he had been dosed with narcotics. They let him be. Singleton held to the wheel with one hand while he drank, bending down to shoulder as lips from the wind. Wamebo had to be poked and yelled at before he saw the mug held before his eyes. Nole said sagaciously, It's battered in the taut of rum. Mr. Baker grunted, Thank ye. Mr. Creighton drank and nodded. Duncan gulped greedily, glaring over the rim. Belfast made his laugh when, with grimacing mouth he shouted, Pass it this way. We're all Tate-tottlers here. The master presented with the mug again by a crouching man, who screamed up at him. We all had a drink, Captain. Groped for it without ceasing to look ahead and handed it back stiffly as though he could not spare half a glance away from the ship. Faces brightened. We shouted to the cook, Well done, doctor. He sat to leeward, propped by the water-cask, and yelled back abundantly. But the seas were breaking in thunder just then.  He was at his old game of preaching. We made friendly but derisive gestures at him, and from below he lifted one arm, holding on with the other, moved his lips. He beamed up to us, straining his voice, earnest and ducking his head before the sprays. Always someone cried, Where's Jimmy? And we were appalled once more. At the end of the row the boatson shouted hoarsely, Has anyone seen him come out? Voices exclaimed dismal-y. Drowned is he. No, in his cabin. Good Lord! Caught like a blooming rat in a trap. Couldn't open his door. Ah, she went over too quick and the water jammed it. Poor beggar. No help for him. Let's go and see. Damn him! Who could go? screamed Duncan. No one expects you to, growled the man next to him. You're only a thane. Is there half a chance to get at him? Inquired two or three men together. Belfast untied himself with blind impetuosity, and all at once shot down to Leeward quicker than a flash of lightning. We shouted all together with dismay, but with his legs overboard he held and yelled for a rope.   He scrambled up for others scared and consigning us with abominable words to the devil. You are awe.  He answered, stuttering with indignation. Look at him, sore. The dirty bloomin' images laughin' at a chum goin' overboard. Call themselves men, too. But from the break of the poop the bosson called out to come along, and Belfast crawled away in a hurry to join him. The five men, poised and gazing over the edge of the poop, looked for the best way to get forward. They seemed to hesitate. The others, twisting in their lashings, turning painfully, stared with open lips. Captain Olliston saw nothing. He seemed with his eyes to hold the ship up in the superhuman concentration of effort. The wind screamed loud in sunshine. Columns of spray rose straight up, and in the glitter of rainbows bursting over the trembling hull, the men went over cautiously, disappearing from sight with deliberate movements. They went swinging from belaying pin to cleat above the seas that beat the half-submerged deck. Their toes scraped the planks. Lumps of green cold water toppled over the bulwark and on their heads. They hung for a moment on strained arms, with the breath knocked out of them, and with cloths' eyes, then letting go with one hand, balanced with rolling heads trying to grab some rope or stanchion further forward. The long-armed and athletic boson swung quickly, gripping things with a fist hard as iron, and remembering suddenly snatches of the last letter from his old woman.  When Meebo's tongue hung out with excitement and archy, intrepid and calm, watched his chance to move with intelligent coolness. When above the side of the house, they let go one after another, and falling heavily, sprawled, pressing their palms to the smooth teak wood. Around them the backwash of waves seethed white and hissing. All the doors had become trap doors, of course. The first was the galley door. The galley extended from side to side, and they could hear the sea splashing with hollow noises in there. The next door was that of the carpenter's shop. They lifted it and looked down. The room seemed to have been devastated by an earthquake. Everything in it had tumbled on the bulkhead facing the door, and on the other side of that bulkhead there was Jimmy Dutter alive. The bench with a half-finished meat safe, saws, chisels, wire rods, axes, crowbars, laying a heap besprinkled with loose nails.  The men clung to one another, peering. A sickening, sly lurch of the ship nearly sent them overboard in a body. Belfast howled, here goes, and leaped down. Archie followed Cannelly, catching at shells that gave way with him, and eased himself in a great crash of ripped wood. There was hardly room for three men to move. And in the sun-shiny blue square of the door, the Boson's face, bearded and dark, Wamebo's face, wild and pale, hung over, watching. Together they shouted, Jimmy, Jim, from above the Boson's contributed a deep growl, you, wait. In a pause, Belfast entreated, Jimmy, darling, are you alive? The Boson said, again, altogether, boys, all yelled excitedly. Wamebo made noises resembling loud barks. Belfast drummed on the side of the bulkhead with a piece of iron. All ceased suddenly. The sound of screaming and hammering went on thin and distinct like a solo after a chorus. He was alive. He was screaming and knocking below us with the hurry of a band prematurely shot up in a coffin. We went to work. We attacked with desperation the abominable heap of things heavy, of things sharp, of things clumsy to handle. The Boson crawled away to find somewhere a flying end of a rope, and Wamebo, held back by shouts, Don't jump. Don't come in here, muddlehead. Remain glaring above us, all shining eyes, gleaming fangs, tumbled hair, resembling an amazed and half-witted fiend glouting over the extraordinary agitation of the damned. The Boson adjured us to bare hand, and a rope descended. We made things fast to it, and they went up spinning, never to be seen by a man again. Arraged to fling things overboard possessed us. We worked fiercely, cutting our hands and speaking brutally to one another. Jimmy kept up a distracting row. He screamed piercingly without drawing breath, like a tortured woman. He banged with hands and feet. The agony of his fear wrung our hearts so terribly that we longed to abandon him, to get out of that place deep as a well, and swaying like a tree, to get out of his hearing back on the poop where we could wait passively for death in incomparable repose.  He redoubled his cries. He must have fancied we could not hear him. Probably he heard his own clamor, but faintly. We could picture him crouching on the edge of the upper berth, letting out with both fists at the wood and the dark, and with his mouth wide open for that unceasing cry. Those were loathsome moments. A cloud driving across the sun would darken the doorway menacingly. Every movement of the ship was pain. We scrambled about with no room to breathe, and felt frightfully sick. The boson yelled down at us, Bear a hand, bear a hand. We too will be washed away from here directly if you ain't quick. Three times the sea leaped over the high side and flung bucketfuls of water on our heads. Then Jimmy, startled by the shock, would stop his noise for a moment, waiting for the ship to sink, perhaps, and began again distressingly loud as if invigorated by the gust of fear. At the bottom the nails lay in a layer several inches thick. It was ghastly. Every nail in the world, not driven infirmly somewhere, seemed to have found its way into that carpenter's shop. There they were, of all kinds, the remnants of stores from seven voyages. Tin tacks, copper tacks, sharp as needles. Pumped nails with big heads, like tiny iron mushrooms. Nails without any heads. Horrible. French nails polished and slim. They lay in a solid mass, more unabortable than a hedgehog. We hesitated, yearning for a shovel. While Jimmy, below us, yelled as though he had been flayed. Roaning, we dug our fingers in, and very much hurt, shook our hands, scattering nails and drops of blood.  We got to the bulkhead at last. Those were stout planks. He was a ship well finished in every detail, than our sis' was. They were the stoutest planks ever put into a ship's bulkhead, we thought, and then we perceived that, in our hurry. We had sent all the tools overboard. Absurd little Belfast wanted to break it down with his own weight, and with both feet leaped straight up like a spring-box, cursing the Clyde shipwrights for not scamping their work. Incidentally, he reviled all North Britain, the rest of the earth, the sea, and all his companions. He swore, as he alighted heavily on his heels, that he would never, never any more associate with any fool that hadn't savvy enough to know his knee from his elbow. He managed by his thumping to scare the last remnant of wits out of Jimmy. We could hear the object of our exasperated solicitude darting to and fro under the planks. He had cracked his voice at last, and could only squeak miserably. His back or else's head rubbed the planks, now here, now there, in a puzzling manner. He squeaked as he dodged the invisible blows. It was more heart-rending even than his yells. Suddenly Archie produced a crowbar. He had kept it back, also a small hatchet. We howled with satisfaction. He struck a mighty blow, and small chips flew at our eyes. The bosson above shouted, Look out! Look out there!  Easy does it! Womebo, maddened with excitement, hung head down, and insanely urged us, Hoo! Stroke him! Hoo! Hoo!  Then, altogether, we yelled down at the planks, Stand from under, get forward, and listened. We only heard the deep hum and moan of the wind above us, the mingled roar and hiss of the seas. The ship, as if overcome with despair, wallowed lifelessly, and our heads swam with that unnatural motion. Belfast clamored, For the love of God, Jimmy, where are ye? Knock, Jimmy, darling!  Knock! He was as quiet as a dead man inside a grave, and like men standing above a grave, we were on the verge of tears. But with vexation, the strain, the fatigue, with the great longing to be done with it to get away, and lie down to rest somewhere where we could see our danger and breathe. Archie shouted, Give me room! We crouched behind him, guarding our heads, and he struck time after time in the joint of planks. They crocked. Suddenly the crowbar went halfway in through a splintered oblong hole. It must have missed Jimmy's head by less than an inch. Archie withdrew it quickly, and that infamous nigger rushed at the hole, put his lips to it, and whispered, Help, in an almost extinct voice. He pressed his head to it, trying madly to get out through that opening one inch wide and three inches long. In our disturbed state we were absolutely paralyzed by his incredible action. It seemed impossible to drive him away. Even Archie at last lost his composure. If ye don't clear ute, I'll drive the crowbar, throw your head. He shouted in a determined voice. He meant what he said, and his earnestness seemed to make an impression on Jimmy. He disappeared suddenly, and we sat deprising and tearing at the planks with the eagerness of men trying to get at an immortal enemy, and spurred by the desire to tear him limb from him. The wood split, cracked, gave way. Belfast plunged in, head and shoulders, and groped evitiously. I've got him, got him, he shouted. Oh, there, he's gone. I've got him. Pull up my legs. Pull! Wamebo hooted unceasingly. The bosson shouted directions. Catch hold of his hair, Belfast. Pull straight up, you two. Pull fair. We pulled fair.  In a sitting posture, purple-faced, he sobbed despairingly. How can I hold on to his bloomin' short wool? Suddenly Jimmy's head and shoulders appeared.  We flew at him with brutal impatience. We tore the shirt off his back. We tugged at his ears. We panted over him. And all at once he came away in our hands as though somebody had let go his legs. With the same movement without a pause, we swung him up. His breath whistled. He kicked our upturned faces. He grasped two pairs of arms above his head. And he squirmed up with such precipitation that he seemed positively to escape from our hands like a bladder full of gas. Streaming with perspiration, we swarmed up the rope and coming into the blast of cold wind, gasped like men plunged into icy water. With burning faces, we shivered to the very marrow of our bones. Never before had the gale seemed to us more furious, the sea more mad, the sunshine more merciless in mocking, and the position of the ship more hopeless and appalling. Every movement of her was ominous of the end of her agony and of the beginning of ours. We staggered away from the door and, alarmed by a sudden roll, fell down in a bunch. It appeared to us that the side of the house was more smooth than glass and more slippery than ice. There was nothing to hang on to but a long brass hook to use sometimes to keep back an open door. Womibo held on to it and we held on to Womibo clutching our Jimmy. He had completely collapsed now. He did not seem to have the strength to close his hand. We stuck to him blindly in our fear. We were not afraid of Womibo letting go. We remembered that the brute was stronger than any three men in the ship. But we were afraid of the hook-giving way, and we also believed that the ship had made up our mind to turn over at last. But she didn't. The sea swept over us. The boson splattered. Up and away, there's a lull. Away aft with you or we will all go to the devil here. We stood up surrounding Jimmy. We begged him to hold up to hold on, at least. He glared with his bulging eyes, mute as a fish, and with all the stiffening knocked out of him. He wouldn't stand. He wouldn't even as much as clutch at our necks. He was only a cold black skin, loosely stuffed with soft cotton wool. His arms and legs swung jointless and pliable. His head rolled about. The lower lip hung down enormous and heavy. We pressed round him, bothered and dismayed. Shelter in him we swung here and there in a body. And on the very brink of eternity we tottered all together with concealing and observed gestures like a lot of drunken men embarrassed with a stolen corpse. Something had to be done. We had to get him aft. A rope was tied slack under his armpits and, reaching up at the risk of our lives, we hung him on the four-sheet cleat. He emitted no sound. He looked as ridiculously lamentable as a doll that had lost half its oddest. And we started on our perilous journey over the main deck, dragging along with care that pitiful, that limp, that hateful bird. He was not very heavy, but had he weighed a ton he could not have been more awkward to handle. We literally passed him from hand to hand.  Had the pin broken he would have irretrievably gone into this other notion. But he had to take his chance of that. And after a little while, becoming apparently aware of it, he groaned slightly and with a great effort whispered a few words. We listened eagerly. He was reproaching us with our carelessness in letting him run such risks. Now, after I got myself out from there, he breathed weakly. There was his cabin. And he got himself out. We had nothing to do with it, apparently. No matter. We went on and let him take his chances simply because we could not help it. For though at the time we hated him more than ever, more than anything under heaven, we did not want to lose him. We had so far saved him and it had become a personal matter between us and the sea. We meant to stick to him. Had we, by an incredible hypothesis, undergone similar toil and trouble for an empty cask, that cask would have become as precious to us as Jimmy was. More precious, in fact, because we would have had no reason to hate the cask. And we hated James Waite. We could not get rid of the monstrous suspicion that this astounding black man was shamming sick, had been malingering heartlessly in the face of our toil, of our scorn, of our patience, and now was malingering in the face of our devotion, in the face of death. Our vague and imperfect morality rose with disgust at his unmanly lie. But he stuck to it manfully, amazingly. No, it couldn't be. He was at all extremity. His contankerous temper was only the result of the provoking invincibleness of that death he felt by his side. Any man may be angry with such a masterful chum. But then what kind of men were we with our thoughts? Indignation and doubt grappled within us in a scuffle that trampled upon the finest of our feelings. And we hated him because of the suspicion. We detested him because of the doubt. We could not scorn him safely. Neither could we pity him without risk to our dignity. So we hated him and passed him carefully from hand to hand. We cried, Got him? Yes, all right, let go. And he swung from one enemy to another, showing about as much life as an old bolster would do.  The air escaped through his lips with the noise like the sound of bellows. We reached the poop ladder at last and had been a comparatively safe place. We lay for a moment in an exhausted heap to rest a little. He began to mutter. We were always incurably anxious to hear what he had to say. This time he mumbled peevishly. It took you some time to come.  What kept you back? Hey? Plunk? We said nothing. With sighs we started again to drag him up. The secret and ardent desire of our hearts was the desire to beat him viciously with our fists about the head, and we handled him as tenderly as though he had been made of glass. The return on the poop was like the return of wanderers after many years amongst people marked by the desolation of time. Eyes were turned slowly in their sockets, glancing at us. Faint murmurs were heard. Have you got him, after all? The well-known faces looked strange and familiar. They seemed faded and grimy. They had a mingled expression of fatigue and eagerness. They seemed to have become much thinner during our absence, as if all these men had been starved for a long time in their abandoned attitudes. The captain with a round turn of a rope on his wrist and kneeling on one knee swung with a face cold and stiff, but with living eyes he was still holding the ship up, heeding no one, as if lost in the unearthly effort of that endeavor. We fastened up James Wade in a safe place. Mr. Baker scrambled along to lend a hand. Mr. Crichton, on his back, in very pale, muttered, well done, and gave us, Jimmy in the sky, a scornful glance, then closed his eyes slowly. Here and there a man steered a little, but most of them remained apathetic in cramped positions, muttering between shivers. The sun was setting. A sun enormous, unclouded, and red, declining low, as if bending down to look into their faces. The wind whistled across long sunbeams that, resplendent and cold, struck full on the dilated pupils of staring eyes without making them wink. The wisps of hair and tangled beards were gray with the salt of the sea. The faces were earthy, and the dark patches under the eyes extended to the ears, smudged into the hollows of sunken cheeks. The lips were livid and thin, and when they moved it was with difficulty, as though they had been glued to the teeth. Some grinned sadly in the sunlight, shaking with cold. Others were sad and still. Charlie, subdued by the sudden disclosure of the insignificance of his youth, darted fearful glances. The two smooth-faced Norwegians resembled decrepit children staring stupidly. The leeward, on the edge of the horizon, black seas leaped up towards the glowing sun. It sang slowly, round and blazing, and the crests of waves splashed on the edge of the luminous circle. One of the Norwegians appeared to catch sight of it, and after giving a violent start began to speak. His voice, startling the others, made them stir. They moved their heads stiffly, or turning with difficulty, looked at him with surprise, with fear, or in grave silence. He chattered at the setting sun, nodding his head, while the big seas began to roll across the crimson desk. And over miles of turbulent water the shadows of high waves swept with a running darkness the faces of men. A crusted roller broke with a loud hissing roar, and the sun, as if put out, disappeared. The chattering voice faltered, went out together with the light. There were sighs. In the sudden lull that follows the crash of a broken sea, a man said wearily, Here's that bloomin' Dutchman gone off his chump. A seaman, lashed by the middle, tapped the deck with his open hand with unceasing quick flaps. In the gathering grayness of twilight a bulky form was seen rising aft, and began marching on all fours with the movements of some big cautious beast. It was Mr. Baker passing along the line of men. He grunted encouragingly over every one, felt their fastenings. Some, with half open eyes, puffed like men oppressed by heat.  He went from one to another grunting. Ah, sir threw it yet, and unexpectedly, with loud angry outbursts, blew up knolls for cutting off a long piece from the fall of the relieving tackle. Ah, ashamed of yourself. Relieving tackle, don't you know better? Ah, able seaman. Ah, the lame man was Christ, he muttered. Yet something for a lashing for myself, sir. Ah, lashing yourself. Are you a tinker or a sailor? What? Ah, may want that tackle directly. Ah, more used to the ship than your lame carcass. Ah, keep it, keep it, now you've done it. He crawled away slowly, muttering to himself about some man being worse than children. It had been a comforting row. Low exclamations were heard. Hello, hello. Those who had been painfully dozing asked with convulsive starts. What's up? What is it? The answers came with unexpected cheerfulness. The mate is going bald-headed for lame jack about something or other. No. What has he done? Someone even chuckled. It was like a whiff of hope, like a reminder of safe days. Duncan, who had been stupefied with fear, revived suddenly and began to shout. Here, Im, that's the way they talked to us. Why don't you, it, Im, one of you. It, Im, it, Im, coming to mate over us. We are as good men as E. We're all going to L now. We have been starved in this rotten ship, and now we're going to be grounded for them black-hearted bullies. It, Im. He shrieked in the deepening gloom he blubbered and sobbed, screaming, It, Im, It, Im. The rage and fear of his disregarded right to live tried the steadfulness of hearts more than the menacing shadows of the night that advanced through the unceasing clamor of the gale. From aft Mr. Baker was heard, As one of you men going to stop him, must I come along?  Keep quiet! cried various voices, exasperated, trembling with cold. You'll get one across the mug from me directly, said an invisible seaman in a weary tone. I won't let the mate have the trouble. He ceased and lay still with the silence of despair. On the black sky the stars coming out gleamed over an inking sea that sprinkled with foam flashed back at them the effervescent and pale light of a dazzling whiteness borne from the black turmoil of the waves. Remote in the eternal calm they glittered hard and cold above the upper aura of the earth. They surrounded the vanquished and tormented ship on all sides, more pitiless than the eyes of a triumphant mob, and unapproachable as the hearts of men. The icy south wind held exultantly under the somber splendor of the sky. The cold shook the men with a resistuous violence as though it had tried to shake them to pieces. Short moans were swept unheard off the stiff lips. Some complained and mutters of not feeling themselves below the waist, while those who had closed their eyes imagined they had a block of ice on their chests. Others, alarmed at not feeling any pain in their fingers, beat the deck feebly with their hands, obstinate and exhausted. When Meebo stared vacant and dreamy, the Scandinavians kept on a meaningless mutter through chattering teeth. The spare Scotsmen, with determined efforts, kept their lower jaws still. The West Countrymen lay big and stolid in invulnerable surliness. A man yawned and swore in turns. Another breathed with a rattle in his throat. Two elderly, hard-weathers showbacks, fast side-by-side, whispered dismally to one another about the landlady of a boarding-house in Sunderland, whom they both knew. They extolled her motherliness and her liberality. They tried to talk about the join of beef and the big fire in the downstairs kitchen. The words dying faintly on their lips ended in light size. A sudden voice cried into the cold night, O Lord! No one changed his position or took any notice of the cry. One or two passed with the repeated and vague gestures, their hand over their faces, but most of them kept very still. In the benumbed immovability of their bodies, they were excessively wearied by their thoughts, which rushed with the repetitive and vividness of dreams. Now and then, with an abrupt and startling exclamation, they answered the weird hail of some illusion. Then again in silence contemplated the vision of known faces and familiar things. They recalled the aspect of forgotten shipmates and heard the voice of dead and gone skippers. They remembered the noise of gas-let streets, the steamy heat of tap rooms, or the scorching sunshine of calm days at sea. Mr. Baker left his insecure place and crawled with stoppages along the poop. In the dark and on all fours he resembled some carnivorous animal prowling amongst corpses. At the break, propped a windward of a stanchion, he looked down on the main deck. It seemed to him that the shape of the stanchion seemed to be the same as the wake. Propped a windward of a stanchion, he looked down on the main deck. It seemed to him that the ship had a tendency to stand up a little more. The wind had eased a little, he thought, but the sea ran as high as ever. The waves foamed viciously, and the leeside of the deck disappeared under a hissing whiteness as of boiling milk, while the rigging sank steadily with a deep vibrating sound, and at every upward swing of the ship the wind rushed with a long-drawn clamor amongst the spars. Mr. Baker watched very still. A man near him began to make a blabby noise with his lips all at once and very loud, as though the cold had broken brutally through him. He went on, ba, ba, ba, ber, ber, ba, ba. Stop that, cried Mr. Baker, groping in the dark. Stop it. He went on shaking the leg he found under his hand. What is it, sir, called out Belfast, and the tone of a man awakened suddenly? We are looking after that ear, Jimmy. Are you? Ah, don't make that row, then. Who's that near you? It's me, the Bosun, sir, rowed the West Countryman. We are trying to keep the life in that poor devil. Aye, aye, said Mr. Baker. Do it quietly, can't you? He wants us to hold him up above the rail, went on the Bosun, with irritation, says he can't breathe here under our jackets. If we lift him we drop him overboard, said another voice. We can't feel our hands with cold. I don't care. I'm choking, exclaimed James Waite in a clear tone. Oh, no, my son, said the Bosun, desperately. You don't go till we all go on this fine night. You will see yet many a worse, said Mr. Baker, cheerfully. It's no child's place, sir, answered the Bosun. Some of us further aft here are in a pretty bad way. If the blame-sticks had been cut out of her she would be running along on her bottom now like any decent ship and give us all a kiss, said someone with his eye. The old man wouldn't have it, much he cares for us, whispered another. Care for you, exclaimed Mr. Baker angrily. Why should he care for you? Are you a lot of women passengers to be taken care of? We are here to take care of the ship, and some of you ain't up to that. Ock, what have you done so very smart to be taken care of? Ock, some of you can't stand a bit of a breeze without crying over it. Come, sir, we ain't so bad, protested Belfast, in a voice shaken by shivers. We ain't brrr. Again, shouted the mate, grabbing at the shadowy form. Again. Why, you're in your shirt. What have you done? I've put my oil skin and jacket over that half-dead nigger, and he says he chokes, said Belfast, complainingly.  Boom, James, wait vigorously. You brrr. You wouldn't be white if you were ever so well. I will fight you brrr, and find weather brrr, with one hand tied behind my back brrr. I don't want your rags, I want air, gassed out the other faintly as if suddenly exhausted. The sprays swept over whistling and powdering. Men disturbed in their peaceful torpor by the pain of quarrel some shouts moaned, muttering curses. Mr. Baker crawled off a little way to Leeward where a water-caste gloomed up big with something white against it. Is it you, Podmore? asked Mr. Baker. He had to repeat the question twice before the cook turned, coughing feebly. Yes, sir. I've been praying in my mind for a quick appearance, for I am prepared for any call. Aye. Look here, cook, interrupted Mr. Baker. The men are perishing with cold. Cold said the cook mournfully. They will be warm enough before along. What? asked Mr. Baker, looking along the deck into the faint sheen of frothing water. They are a wicked lot continued to cook solemnly, but in an unsteady voice, about as wicked as any ship's company in this sinful world. Now, aye, he troubled so that he could hardly speak. His was an exposed place, and in a cotton shirt, a thin pair of trousers, and with his knees under his nose, he received quaking the flicks of stinging salt drops. His voice sounded exhausted. Now, aye, any time. My oldest youngster, Mr. Baker, a clever boy, lasted Sunday on shore before this voyage. He wouldn't go to church, sir. Says I, you go and clean yourself, or I'll know the reason why. What does he do? Pond, Mr. Baker, fell into the pond in his best rig, sir. Accident?  His voice faltered. I whooped him, he repeated, rattling his teeth. Then, after a while, let out a mournful sound that was half a groan, half a snore. Mr. Baker shook him by the shoulders. Hey, Cook, hold up, Podmore. Tell me, is there any fresh water in the galley tank? The ship is lying along last, I think. I would try to get forward. A little water would do them good. Hello, look out. Look out. The Cook struggled. Not you, sir, not you. He began to scramble to windward. Galley, my business, he shouted. Cook's going crazy now, said several voices. He yelled, crazy am I. I am more ready to die than any of you officers inclusive there. As long as she swims, I will cook. I will get you coffee.  But the Cook was already going over the weather ladder. He stopped for a moment to shout back on the poop. As long as she swims, I will cook. And disappeared as though he had gone overboard.  An hour or more afterward someone said distinctly, he's gone for good. Very likely, assented the boatsman. Even in fine weather he was as smart about the deck as a melch cow on her first voyage. We ought to go and see. Nobody moved. As the hours dragged slowly through the darkness, Mr. Baker crawled back and forth along the poop several times. Some men fancied they had heard him exchange murmurs with the master, but at that time the memories were incomparably more vivid than anything actual. And they were not certain whether the murmurs were heard now or many years ago. They did not try to find out. A mutter, more or less, did not matter. It was too cold for curiosity and almost for hope. They could not spare a moment or a thought from the great mental occupation of wishing to live. And the desire of life kept them alive, apathetic and enduring, under the cruel persistence of wind and cold. While the bestowed black dome of the sky revolved slowly above the ship, it drifted bearing their patience and their suffering through the stormy solitude of the sea. Huddled close to one another, they fancied themselves utterly alone. They heard sustained loud noises and again bore the pain of existence through long hours of profound silence. In the night they saw sunshine felt warmth and suddenly with a start thought that the sun would never rise upon a freezing world. Some heard laughter, listened to songs, others near the end of the poop could hear loud human shrieks, and opening their eyes were surprised to hear them still, though very faint and far away. The boson said, Why is the cook hailing from forward, I think? He hardly believed his own words or recognized his own voice. It was a long time before the man next to him gave a sign of life. He punched hard his other neighbor and said, The cook's shouting. Many did not understand, others did not care, the majority further aft did not believe. But the boson and another man had to pluck to crawl away forward to sea. They seemed to have been gone for hours and were very soon forgotten. Then suddenly men who had been plunged in a hopeless resignation became as if possessed with a desire to hurt. They belabored one another with fists. In the darkness they struck persistently, anything soft they could feel near, and with a greater effort than for a shout whispered excitedly, They've got some hot coffee. Boson got it. No. Where? It's coming. Cook made it. James Waite moaned. Duncan scrambled viciously, carrying not where he kicked, and anxious that the officer should have none of it. It came in a pot and they drank in turns. It was hot, and while it blistered the greedy pallets, it seemed incredible. The men sighed out, parting with the mug. Ah, has he done it? Some cried weakly. Bully for you, doctor. He had done it somehow. Afterwards Archie declared that the thing was miraculous. For many days we wondered, and it was the one ever interesting subject of conversation to the end of the voyage. We asked the cook in fine weather how he felt when he saw a stove reared up on end. We inquired in the northeast trade and on serene evenings whether he had to stand on his head to put things right somewhat. We suggested he had used his breadboard for a raft, and from there comfortably had stoked as great, and we did our best to conceal our admiration under the wood of fine irony. He affirmed not to know anything about it, rebuked our levity, declared himself with solemn animation to have been the object of a special mercy for the saving of our unholy lives. Fundamentally he was right, no doubt, but he need not have been so offensively positive about it. He need not have hinted so often that it would have gone hard with this had he not been there, meritorious and pure, to receive the inspiration and strength for the work of grace. Had we been saved by his recklessness or his agility, we could have at length become reconciled to the fact, but to admit our obligation to anybody's virtue and holiness alone was as difficult for us as for any other handful of mankind. Like many benefactors of humanity, the cook took himself too seriously and reaped the reward of irreverence. We were not ungrateful, however, he remained heroic. His saying, the saying of his life, became proverbial in the mouth of men as are the sayings of conquerors or sages. Later, whenever one of us was puzzled by a task and advised to relinquish it, he would express his determination to persevere and to succeed by the words, as long as she swims, I will cook. The hot drink helped us through the bleak hours that preceded the dawn. The sky low by the horizon took on the delicate tints of pink and yellow like the inside of a rare shale. And higher, where it glowed with a pearly sheen, a small black cloud appeared like a forgotten fragment of the night set in the border of dazzling gold. The beams of light skipped on the crust of waves. The eyes of men turned to the eastward. The sunlight flooded their weary faces. They were giving themselves up to fatigue as though they had none forever with their work. On Singleton's black oil-skin coat, the dried salt glistened like whorefrost. He hung on by the wheel with open and lifeless eyes. Captain Alliston, unblanking, faced the rising sun. His lips stirred open for the first time in twenty-four hours, and with a fresh, firm voice he cried, Where ship? The commanding sharp tones made all those torpid men start like a sudden flick of a whip. Then again motionless were they lay. The force of habit made some of them repeat the order in hardly audible murmurs. Captain Alliston glanced down at his crew, and several, with fumbling fingers and hopeless movements, tried to cast themselves adrift. He repeated impatiently. Where ship? Now then, Mr. Baker, get them in along. What's the matter with them? Where ship? Do you hear there? Where ship? Thundered out the boson suddenly. His voice seemed to break through a deadly spell. Men began to stir and crawl. I want the foretop mast stay sail run up smartly, said the master, very loudly. If you can't manage it standing up, you must do it lying down. That's all. Bear a hand. Come along. Let's give the old girl a chance, urged the boson. I, I, where ship? exclaimed quavering voices. The folksal men with reluctant faces prepared to go forward. Mr. Baker pushed ahead, grunting on all fours to show the way, and they followed him over the break. The others lay still with the vile hope in their hearts of not being required to move till they got saved, or drowned in peace. After some time they could be seen forward appearing on the folksal head, one by one in unsafe attitudes, hanging onto the rails, clamoring over the anchors, embracing the cross-head of the windlass, or hugging the four capstan. They were restless with strange exertions, waved their arms, knelt, lay flat down, staggered up, seemed to strive their hardest to go overboard.  Its narrow head rose in jerks, and at last it stood distendent and triangular in the sunshine. They have done it, cried the voices aft. Captain Alastin let go the rope he had round his wrist, and rolled to Leeward headlong. He could be seen casting the Lee main braces off the pins, while the backwash of waves splashed over him. Square the main-yard, he shouted up to us, who stared at him in wonder. We hesitated to stir. The main-brace man, hall, hall anyhow, lay on your backs and hall. He screeched half-drowned down there. We did not believe we could move the main-yard, but the strongest and the less discouraged tried to execute the order. Others assisted half-heartedly. Singleton's eyes blazed suddenly as he took a fresh grip of the spokes. Captain Alastin fought his way up to Windward. Hallman tried to move it. Hall, and helped the ship. His hard-faced works effused and furious. Is she going off, Singleton? he cried. Not a move yet, sir, croaked the old seamen in a horribly hoarse voice. Watch the helm, Singleton, sputtered the master. Hall, men, have you no more strength than rats?  And the wild scramble of men grabbed at him, crawled over his hurt leg, knelt on his chest. He kept perfectly still, setting his teeth without a moan, without a sigh. The master's ardor, the cries of that silent man inspired us. We hauled and hung in bunches on the rope. We heard him say with violence to Duncan, who sprawled objectively on his stomach, I will brain you with this belaying pin if you don't catch hold of the brace. And that victim of man's injustice, cowardly and cheeky, whimpered, Are you going to murder us now? While with sudden desperation he gripped the rope. Men's side shouted his meaningless words groaned. The yards moved, came slowly square against the wind that hummed loudly on the yard arms.  Catch a turn with that brace, catch a turn, clamored the master. Mr. Crichton, early suffocated and unable to move, made a mighty effort, and with his left hand managed to nip the rope. All fast cried someone. He closed his eyes as if going off into a swoon, while huddled together about the brace, we watched with scared looks what the ship would do now. She went off slowly as though she had been weary and disheartened like the men she carried. She paid off very gradually, making us hold our breath till we choked, and as soon as she had brought the wind to bath the beam, she started to move and fluttered our hearts. It was awful to see her nearly overturned begin to gather away and drag her submerged side through the water. The dead eyes of the rigging churned the breaking seas. The lower half of the deck was full of mad whirlpools and eddies, and the long line of the lee rail could be seen showing black now and then in the swirls of a field of foam as dazzling and white as a field of snow. The wind sang shrilly amongst the spars, and at every slight urge we expected her to slip to the bottom sideways from under our backs. When dead before it, she made the first distinct attempt to stand up, and we encouraged her with a feeble and discordant howl. A great sea came running up aft and hung for a moment over us with the curling top, then crashed down under the counter and spread out on both sides into a great sheet of bursting froth. Above its first hiss we heard singleton's croak. She is staring. He had both his feet now planted firmly on the grading, and the wheel spun fast as he eased the helm. Bring the wind down the port quarter and study her, called out the master, staggering to his feet. The first man up from amongst our prostrate heap, one or two screamed with excitement. She rises. Far away forward Mr. Baker and three others were seen erect and black on the clear sky, lifting her arms and with open mouths as though they had been shouting altogether. The ship trembled, trying to lift her side, lurched back, seemed to give up with a nervous dip, and suddenly with an unexpected jerk swung violently to windward as though she had torn herself out from a deadly grasp. The whole immense volume of water lifted by her deck was thrown bodily across the starboard. Loud cracks were heard. Iron ports breaking open, thundered with ringing blows. The water topped over the starboard rail with a rush of her river falling over a dam. The sea on deck and the seas on every side of her mingled together in a deafening roar. She rolled violently. We got up and were helplessly run or flung about from side to side. Men rolling over and over yelled, the house will go. She clears herself. Lifted by a towering sea, she ran along with it for a moment, spouting thick streams of water through every opening of her wounded sides. The lee braces having men carried away or washed off the pins, all the ponderous yards on the floor swung from side to side and with appalling rapidity in every roll. The men forward were seen crouching here and there with fearful glances upwards at the enormous spars that whirled about over their heads. The torn canvas in the ends of broken gear streamed in the wind like wisps of hair. Through the clear sunshine over the flashing turmoil and uproar of the seas, the ship ran blindly, disheveled and headlong, as if fleeing for her life. And on the poop we spun we tottered about distracted and noisy. We all spoke at once in a thin babble. We had the aspects of invalids and the gestures of maniacs. Eyes shone, large and haggard and smiling, meager faces that seemed to have been dusted over with powdered chalk. We stamped, clapped our hands, feeling ready to jump and do anything, but in reality hardly able to keep on our feet. Captain Alliston, hard and slim, gesticulated madly from the poop at Mr. Baker. Steady those four yards. Steady them the best you can. On the main deck, men excited by his cries, splashed, dashing endlessly here and there with the foam swirling up to their waists. Apart, far aft and alone by the helm, Old Singleton had deliberately tucked his white beard under the top button of his glistening coat. Swearing upon the dim and tumult of the seas with the whole battered length of the ship, launched forward in a rolling rush before his steady old eyes, he stood rigidly still, forgotten by all, and with an attentive face. In front of his erect figure only the two arms moved crosswise with a swift and sudden readiness to check or urge again the rapid stir of circling spokes. He stared with care.