f to port, we
should have fouled our main boom, and--well, we shouldn't have got any
farther.

As we tore past, the white water squirming and hissing between the
vessels' sides, a man leaned over the bulwark, with his face looking
like a red devil's in the glare of the port light, and shook a fist and
screamed a frightened venomous curse. Our only reply was a wild roar of
laughter. As we drove off into the mist of scud ahead, I looked back
and saw the man staring after us with dropped jaw and eyes fairly
goggling. He must have thought us mad. Indeed, I believe we had taken
leave of some of our senses then.

"Vermouth's cheapening," said Haigh. "Pass up another bottle. If we do
happen to go to Jones, it 'ud be a thousand pities to take the liquor
down with us undecanted."

Don't get the idea that we were drunk all through that wild cruise,
because we were not. But one thing and another combined to make the
excitement so vivid, that with the liquor handy it did not take much
inducement to make us tipple pretty heavily. We were vilely fed,
bitterly exposed, heavily overworked, unable even to smoke--and--the
vermouth was very, very good.

As the seas swept her the ugly cutter's planking swelled, but before
she became staunch a fearful amount of water had passed into her.
Haigh, who was in no sort of condition, got utterly spun out by a
five-minutes' spell at the pump, and consequently it had been my task
to restore the incoming Mediterranean to its proper place again. It was
a job that wearied every nerve in my body. The constant and monotonous
heaving up and down of a pump-handle is probably the most exhausting
work existent; and soon after passing that deeply-laden brig I pumped
her dry for (what seemed) the ten thousandth time, and toppled on the
deck dead beat.

"Look here," said Haigh, "you get below and turn in. I'm quite equal to
keeping awake until further notice. I'm never much of a hand at
sleeping at the best of times; and just now I'm well wound up for a
week's watch on end. If you're wanted, I'll call you. Go."

I slipped down without argument, dropped into a bare and clammy bunk,
and slept.

* * * * *

Haigh never roused me. I woke of my own accord, and found daylight
struggling in through the dusty skylight in the after-cabin roof. After
yawning there a minute or so, I conquered laziness and returned to the
deck.

Those who think the Inland Sea is always calm