ht of a couple of dip candles, stuck to the edge
of the bunk. It was not a time to mind about that. "Sir," I said, "the
ship is sinking. Come on deck, sir; take the sail off. The mate says the
ship is sinking."

"Eh," said the captain furiously. "You young spy. I command this ship.
What's the sail got to do with you?" He glared at me in drunken anger.

"You young whelp," he cried, grabbing me by the collar. "Where are your
letters? Eh? Where've you hid your letters?"

At that instant, there came a more violent gust in the fierceness of
wind which drove us. The ship gave a "yank;" there is no other word to
express the frightful shock of her movement. She lay down on her lee
beam ends with a crash of breaking crockery. Casks broke loose in the
hold; gear fell from aloft; the captain was flung under me against the
ship's side. The deck beneath us sloped up like a roof. In the roar
of water rushing down the hatch I remember thinking that the Day of
Judgment was come. Yells on deck mingled with all the uproar; I heard
something thud like a sledge-hammer on the ship's side. The captain
picked himself up holding his head, which was all one gore of blood from
the crack against the ship's side. "Beam ends," he said stupidly. "Beam
ends. Yes. Yes." He was dazed; he did not know what he said; but some
sort of sailor's instinct told him that he was wanted on deck. At any
rate he went out, pulling himself up the steep deck with a cleverness
which I had not expected. He left me clutching the ledge of the bunk,
staring up at the door away above me, while the wreck of my belongings
banged about at my feet. I thought it was all over with the ship; but I
was not scared at the prospect of death; only a little sickish from
the shock of that sudden sweeping over. I found a fascination in the
horrible open door, the black oblong hole in the air through which the
captain had passed. I waited for the sea to pour down it. I expected
to see a clear mass of water with fish in it; something quite calm,
something beautiful, not the noisy horror of the sea outside. I suppose
I waited like that for a full minute before the roar of the squall grew
less. Then I told myself that I must go on deck; that the danger would
be less, looking it in the face, than down there in the cabin. It
was not pleasant to go on deck, any more than it is pleasant to go
downstairs at two in the morning to look for burglars, but it was better
to be moving than staying stil