wouldn't chuck a dratted job like this? 'Tain't safe, s'elp me, it
ain't! Only I am one of them fearless fellows . . .'

He let go the rail and made ample gestures as if demonstrating in
the air the shape and extent of his valour; his thin voice darted in
prolonged squeaks upon the sea, he tiptoed back and forth for the better
emphasis of utterance, and suddenly pitched down head-first as though he
had been clubbed from behind. He said 'Damn!' as he tumbled; an instant
of silence followed upon his screeching: Jim and the skipper staggered
forward by common accord, and catching themselves up, stood very stiff
and still gazing, amazed, at the undisturbed level of the sea. Then they
looked upwards at the stars.

What had happened? The wheezy thump of the engines went on. Had the
earth been checked in her course? They could not understand; and
suddenly the calm sea, the sky without a cloud, appeared formidably
insecure in their immobility, as if poised on the brow of yawning
destruction. The engineer rebounded vertically full length and collapsed
again into a vague heap. This heap said 'What's that?' in the muffled
accents of profound grief. A faint noise as of thunder, of thunder
infinitely remote, less than a sound, hardly more than a vibration,
passed slowly, and the ship quivered in response, as if the thunder had
growled deep down in the water. The eyes of the two Malays at the wheel
glittered towards the white men, but their dark hands remained closed
on the spokes. The sharp hull driving on its way seemed to rise a few
inches in succession through its whole length, as though it had become
pliable, and settled down again rigidly to its work of cleaving the
smooth surface of the sea. Its quivering stopped, and the faint noise
of thunder ceased all at once, as though the ship had steamed across a
narrow belt of vibrating water and of humming air.

CHAPTER 4

A month or so afterwards, when Jim, in answer to pointed questions,
tried to tell honestly the truth of this experience, he said, speaking
of the ship: 'She went over whatever it was as easy as a snake crawling
over a stick.' The illustration was good: the questions were aiming at
facts, and the official Inquiry was being held in the police court of an
Eastern port. He stood elevated in the witness-box, with burning cheeks
in a cool lofty room: the big framework of punkahs moved gently to and
fro high above his head, and from below many eyes were looking