it ran
amuck to do further damage. In securing it I found that it had lost
its bung and was almost empty: but that hardly seemed worth
mentioning, with such a flood of rainwater washing around. There was
nothing to be done at the moment; the breaker in a way was refilling
itself, as soon as I had it jammed, by the water washing over it;
and, after a bit, judging it full or nearly full, I ripped off a
corner of my oily and made a sort of bung, as you see."

"All this had, in fact, cost me some labour, and I related it, no
doubt, a bit too complacently. Worse, I rounded it up by saying,
'The captain, sir, was more anxious about the water than anything, as
he told me yesterday.'

"At this his temper boiled over--yet not (as I could see) until he
had flung a glance at Jarvis and the crew, to make sure they were
submissive still to the old habit of discipline. 'Macnaughten was
always full of wisdom,' he sneered; '--so full that he's dead of it!
. . . And so you didn't think it worth mentioning?'

"Do you know, Roddy, I didn't think the fool worth any further
attention. . . . One can't really hate two men at one time . . . at
any rate, _I_ can't. It's too fatiguing. There sat Farrell, three
feet away, looking dazed, as he'd looked ever since the _Eurotas_
went under. As for this Grimalson, I didn't reckon him worth powder
and shot. I knew that he would bluster before the men, to save his
face, and then climb down. To secure the water on board was such an
obvious measure that, bluster as he might, he couldn't miss coming to
it finally. . . . I heard Jarvis explaining that an empty pork-tub,
with a tarpauling inside of it, would hold quite a deal of the
rainwater washing above the bottom-boards. I took no more trouble
than to turn my back on Grimalson, who was arguing that all this
water was mucking the dry provisions.

"'They're pretty well mucked already, sir, by the looks of 'em,'
answered Jarvis: 'all but the canned meats, and few enough they are.
Five cans, as I counted the last stowage.'

"'Oh, very well, then,' came the order which I had known to be
inevitable. 'Run a tarpauling inside of that cask--and bale, you,
Prout and Martinez!'

"And so, behind my back and almost as I shrugged my shoulders--so,
within twenty minutes of the sunrise that told us we were eight human
beings isolated from all help but that which we could afford to one
another--in a casual, unpremeditated stroke the curse fell on us.