of writhing bodies piled up to port detached itself from the ship's side
and sliding, inert and struggling, shifted to starboard, with a dull,
brutal thump. The cries ceased. The boatswain heard a long moan through
the roar and whistling of the wind; he saw an inextricable confusion of
heads and shoulders, naked soles kicking upwards, fists raised, tumbling
backs, legs, pigtails, faces.

"Good Lord!" he cried, horrified, and banged-to the iron door upon this
vision.

This was what he had come on the bridge to tell. He could not keep it
to himself; and on board ship there is only one man to whom it is
worth while to unburden yourself. On his passage back the hands in the
alleyway swore at him for a fool. Why didn't he bring that lamp? What
the devil did the coolies matter to anybody? And when he came out, the
extremity of the ship made what went on inside of her appear of little
moment.

At first he thought he had left the alleyway in the very moment of her
sinking. The bridge ladders had been washed away, but an enormous sea
filling the after-deck floated him up. After that he had to lie on his
stomach for some time, holding to a ring-bolt, getting his breath now
and then, and swallowing salt water. He struggled farther on his hands
and knees, too frightened and distracted to turn back. In this way
he reached the after-part of the wheelhouse. In that comparatively
sheltered spot he found the second mate.

The boatswain was pleasantly surprised--his impression being that
everybody on deck must have been washed away a long time ago. He asked
eagerly where the Captain was.

The second mate was lying low, like a malignant little animal under a
hedge.

"Captain? Gone overboard, after getting us into this mess." The mate,
too, for all he knew or cared. Another fool. Didn't matter. Everybody
was going by-and-by.

The boatswain crawled out again into the strength of the wind; not
because he much expected to find anybody, he said, but just to get away
from "that man." He crawled out as outcasts go to face an inclement
world. Hence his great joy at finding Jukes and the Captain. But what
was going on in the 'tween-deck was to him a minor matter by that time.
Besides, it was difficult to make yourself heard. But he managed to
convey the idea that the Chinaman had broken adrift together with their
boxes, and that he had come up on purpose to report this. As to the
hands, they were all right. Then, appeased, he subsided on