dge.

"Why, I only want to get you that blamed light you are crying for," he
expostulated, almost pitifully.

Somebody told him to go and put his head in a bag. He regretted he could
not recognize the voice, and that it was too dark to see, otherwise,
as he said, he would have put a head on that son of a sea-cook, anyway,
sink or swim. Nevertheless, he had made up his mind to show them he
could get a light, if he were to die for it.

Through the violence of the ship's rolling, every movement was
dangerous. To be lying down seemed labour enough. He nearly broke
his neck dropping into the bunker. He fell on his back, and was sent
shooting helplessly from side to side in the dangerous company of a
heavy iron bar--a coal-trimmer's slice probably--left down there by
somebody. This thing made him as nervous as though it had been a
wild beast. He could not see it, the inside of the bunker coated with
coal-dust being perfectly and impenetrably black; but he heard it
sliding and clattering, and striking here and there, always in the
neighbourhood of his head. It seemed to make an extraordinary noise,
too--to give heavy thumps as though it had been as big as a bridge
girder. This was remarkable enough for him to notice while he was flung
from port to starboard and back again, and clawing desperately the
smooth sides of the bunker in the endeavour to stop himself. The door
into the 'tween-deck not fitting quite true, he saw a thread of dim
light at the bottom.

Being a sailor, and a still active man, he did not want much of a chance
to regain his feet; and as luck would have it, in scrambling up he put
his hand on the iron slice, picking it up as he rose. Otherwise he would
have been afraid of the thing breaking his legs, or at least knocking
him down again. At first he stood still. He felt unsafe in this darkness
that seemed to make the ship's motion unfamiliar, unforeseen, and
difficult to counteract. He felt so much shaken for a moment that he
dared not move for fear of "taking charge again." He had no mind to get
battered to pieces in that bunker.

He had struck his head twice; he was dazed a little. He seemed to hear
yet so plainly the clatter and bangs of the iron slice flying about
his ears that he tightened his grip to prove to himself he had it there
safely in his hand. He was vaguely amazed at the plainness with which
down there he could hear the gale raging. Its howls and shrieks seemed
to take on, in the emptines