his ears, to his mane, to his tail; they lay
in piles across his back, seventeen in all. The carpenter, seizing
the hook of the cargo-chain, flung himself on the top of them. A very
satisfactory petty officer, too, but he stuttered. Have you ever heard
a light-yellow, lean, sad, earnest Chinaman stutter in Pidgin-English?
It's very weird, indeed. He made the eighteenth. I could not see the
pony at all; but from the swaying and heaving of that heap of men I knew
that there was something alive inside.

From the wharf Almayer hailed, in quavering tones:

"Oh, I say!"

Where he stood he could not see what was going on on deck, unless,
perhaps, the tops of the men's heads; he could only hear the scuffle,
the mighty thuds, as if the ship were being knocked to pieces. I looked
over: "What is it?"

"Don't let them break his legs," he entreated me, plaintively.

"Oh, nonsense! He's all right now. He can't move."

By that time the cargo-chain had been hooked to the broad canvas belt
round the pony's body; the kalashes sprang off simultaneously in all
directions, rolling over each other; and the worthy serang, making a
dash behind the winch, turned the steam on.

"Steady!" I yelled, in great apprehension of seeing the animal snatched
up to the very head of the derrick.

On the wharf Almayer shuffled his straw slippers uneasily. The rattle of
the winch stopped, and in a tense, impressive silence that pony began to
swing across the deck.

How limp he was! Directly he felt himself in the air he relaxed every
muscle in a most wonderful manner. His four hoofs knocked together in a
bunch, his head hung down, and his tail remained pendent in a nerveless
and absolute immobility. He reminded me vividly of the pathetic little
sheep which hangs on the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. I had
no idea that anything in the shape of a horse could be so limp as that,
either living or dead. His wild mane hung down lumpily, a mere mass of
inanimate horsehair; his aggressive ears had collapsed, but as he went
swaying slowly across the front of the bridge I noticed an astute gleam
in his dreamy, half-closed eye. A trustworthy quartermaster, his glance
anxious and his mouth on the broad grin, was easing over the derrick
watchfully. I superintended, greatly interested.

"So! That will do."

The derrick-head stopped. The kalashes lined the rail. The rope of the
halter hung perpendicular and motionless like a bell-pull in front of
A