t, gleamed over an inky sea that, speckled with foam, flashed back at
them the evanescent and pale light of a dazzling whiteness born from the
black turmoil of the waves. Remote in the eternal calm they glittered
hard and cold above the uproar of the earth; they surrounded the
vanquished and tormented ship on all sides: more pitiless than the eyes
of a triumphant mob, and as unapproachable as the hearts of men.

The icy south wind howled exultingly under the sombre splendour of the
sky. The cold shook the men with a resistless violence as though it had
tried to shake them to pieces. Short moans were swept unheard off the
stiff lips. Some complained in 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. Wamibo stared vacant and dreamy. The Scandinavians kept on a
meaningless mutter through chattering teeth. The spare Scotchmen, with
determined efforts, kept their lower jaws still. The West-country men
lay big and stolid in an invulnerable surliness. A man yawned and swore
in turns. Another breathed with a rattle in his throat. Two elderly
hard-weather shellbacks, 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 joint of beef and the big fire in the downstairs
kitchen. The words dying faintly on their lips, ended in light sighs.
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 a
repeated and vague gesture, their hand over their faces, but most of
them kept very still. In the benumbed immobility of their bodies they
were excessively wearied by their thoughts, which rushed with the
rapidity and vividness of dreams. Now and then, by 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
gaslit 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, alo