o
the "divvle." "You are.... Ough! You're a foul-mouthed beggar, Craik,"
grunted Mr. Baker. He answered, stuttering with indignation:--"Look at
'em, sorr. The bloomin dirty images! laughing at a chum going overboard.
Call themselves men, too." But from the break of the poop the boatswain
called out:--"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 painfull, stared with open lips.
Captain Allistoun saw nothing; he seemed with his eyes to hold the ship
up in a 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
closed eyes--then, letting go with one hand, balanced with lolling heads,
trying to grab some rope or stanchion further forward. The long-armed
and athletic boatswain swung quickly, gripping things with a fist hard
as iron, and remembering suddenly snatches of the last letter from his
"old woman." Little Belfast scrambled in a rage spluttering "cursed
nigger." Wamibo's tongue hung out with excitement; and Archie, 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.
Round 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 dead or alive. The bench, a half-finished meat-safe,
saws, chisels, wire rods, axes, crowbars, lay in a heap besprinkled
with loose nails. A