s of the bunker, something of the human
character, of human rage and pain--being not vast but infinitely
poignant. And there were, with every roll, thumps, too--profound,
ponderous thumps, as if a bulky object of five-ton weight or so had got
play in the hold. But there was no such thing in the cargo. Something on
deck? Impossible. Or alongside? Couldn't be.

He thought all this quickly, clearly, competently, like a seaman, and
in the end remained puzzled. This noise, though, came deadened from
outside, together with the washing and pouring of water on deck above
his head. Was it the wind? Must be. It made down there a row like the
shouting of a big lot of crazed men. And he discovered in himself
a desire for a light, too--if only to get drowned by--and a nervous
anxiety to get out of that bunker as quickly as possible.

He pulled back the bolt: the heavy iron plate turned on its hinges; and
it was as though he had opened the door to the sounds of the tempest.
A gust of hoarse yelling met him: the air was still; and the rushing
of water overhead was covered by a tumult of strangled, throaty shrieks
that produced an effect of desperate confusion. He straddled his legs
the whole width of the doorway and stretched his neck. And at first
he perceived only what he had come to seek: six small yellow flames
swinging violently on the great body of the dusk.

It was stayed like the gallery of a mine, with a row of stanchions
in the middle, and cross-beams overhead, penetrating into the gloom
ahead--indefinitely. And to port there loomed, like the caving in of
one of the sides, a bulky mass with a slanting outline. The whole place,
with the shadows and the shapes, moved all the time. The boatswain
glared: the ship lurched to starboard, and a great howl came from that
mass that had the slant of fallen earth.

Pieces of wood whizzed past. Planks, he thought, inexpressibly startled,
and flinging back his head. At his feet a man went sliding over,
open-eyed, on his back, straining with uplifted arms for nothing: and
another came bounding like a detached stone with his head between his
legs and his hands clenched. His pigtail whipped in the air; he made a
grab at the boatswain's legs, and from his opened hand a bright white
disc rolled against the boatswain's foot. He recognized a silver dollar,
and yelled at it with astonishment. With a precipitated sound of
trampling and shuffling of bare feet, and with guttural cries, the mound