in the glare of the sidelights like brief fireworks.

The splash and drum of waters, the heavy drone of the wind in the
sails, the clatter of gear aloft, were in his ears; he did not hear
one bell strike from the poop, which he should have answered with a
stroke on the big bell behind him and a shouted report on the lights.

"Hoy! You schleepin' up dere--hey?"

It was the mate, who had come forward in person to see why he had not
answered. He was by the fore fife-rail, a mere black shape in the
dark.

"Sleepin'--no, sir!"

"Don't you hear yon bell shtrike?" cried the mate, slithering on the
wet deck toward the foot of the ladder.

"No, sir," said Conroy, and stooped to strike the bell.

The mate came up the ladder, hauling himself by the hand-rails, for
he was swollen beyond the ordinary with extra clothes under his long
oilskin coat. A plume of spray whipped him in the face as he got to
the top, and he swore shortly, wiping his eyes with his hands. At the
same moment, Conroy, still stooping to the bell-lanyard, felt the
Villingen lower her nose and slide down in one of her disconcerting
curtseys; he caught at the rail to steady himself. The dark water,
marbled with white foam, rode in over the deck, slid across the
anchors and about the capstan, and came aft toward the ladder and the
mate. The ship rolled at the same moment.

Conroy saw what happened as a grotesque trick of circumstance. The
mate, as the deck slanted, slipped and reached for the hand-rail with
an ejaculation. The water flowed about his knees; he fell back
against the hand-rail, which was just high enough for him to sit on.
lit was what, for one ridiculous moment, he seemed to be doing. The
next, his booted feet swayed up and he fell over backward, amid the
confusion of splashing water that leaped down the main-deck. Conroy
heard him strike something below with a queer, smacking noise.

"Pity he didn't go overboard while he was about it," he said to
himself, acting out his role. Really, he was rather startled and
dismayed.

He found the mate coiled in the scupper, very wet and still. He took
hold of him to draw him under the forecastle head, where he would
have shelter, and was alarmed at the inertness of the body under his
hands.

"Sir!" he cried, "sir!-sir!"

He shook the great shoulders, bat quickly desisted; there was
something horrible, something that touched his nerves, in its
irresponsiveness. He remembered that he might probably