d
trembling lips, made a dash at him. Every man in the forecastle rose
with a shout. There was a moment of wild tumult. Some one shrieked
piercingly:--"Easy, Belfast! Easy!..." We expected Belfast to strangle
Wait without more ado. Dust flew. We heard through it the nigger's
cough, metallic and explosive like a gong. Next moment we saw Belfast
hanging over him. He was saying plaintively:--"Don't! Don't, Jimmy!
Don't be like that. An angel couldn't put up with ye--sick as ye are."
He looked round at us from Jimmy's bedside, his comical mouth twitching,
and through tearful eyes; then he tried to put straight the disarranged
blankets. The unceasing whisper of the sea filled the forecastle. Was
James Wait frightened, or touched, or repentant? He lay on his back with
a hand to his side, and as motionless as if his expected visitor
had come at last. Belfast fumbled about his feet, repeating with
emotion:--"Yes. We know. Ye are bad, but.... Just say what ye want done,
and.... We all know ye are bad--very bad...." No! Decidedly James Wait
was not touched or repentant. Truth to say, he seemed rather startled.
He sat up with incredible suddenness and ease. "Ah! You think I am bad,
do you?" he said gloomily, in his clearest baritone voice (to hear him
speak sometimes you would never think there was anything wrong with that
man). "Do you?... Well, act according! Some of you haven't sense enough
to put a blanket shipshape over a sick man. There! Leave it alone! I
can die anyhow!" Belfast turned away limply with a gesture of
discouragement. In the silence of the forecastle, full of interested
men, Donkin pronounced distinctly:--"Well, I'm blowed!" and sniggered.
Wait looked at him. He looked at him in a quite friendly manner. Nobody
could tell what would please our incomprehensible invalid: but for us
the scorn of that snigger was hard to bear.

Donkin's position in the forecastle was distinguished but unsafe. He
stood on the bad eminence of a general dislike. He was left alone; and
in his isolation he could do nothing but think of the gales of the
Cape of Good Hope and envy us the possession of warm clothing and
waterproofs. Our sea-boots, our oilskin coats, our well-filled
sea-chests, were to him so many causes for bitter meditation: he had
none of those things, and he felt instinctively that no man, when
the need arose, would offer to share them with him. He was impudently
cringing to us and systematically insolent to the officers