we must close the companion doors.

"And all this, if you please, for Mr. Pinkerton's dollars!" the captain
suddenly exclaimed. "There's many a fine fellow gone under, Mr. Dodd,
because of drivers like your friend. What do they care for a ship or
two? Insured, I guess. What do they care for sailors' lives alongside
of a few thousand dollars? What they want is speed between ports, and
a damned fool of a captain that'll drive a ship under as I'm doing this
one. You can put in the morning, asking why I do it."

I sheered off to another part of the vessel as fast as civility
permitted. This was not at all the talk that I desired, nor was the
train of reflection which it started anyway welcome. Here I was, running
some hazard of my life, and perilling the lives of seven others; exactly
for what end, I was now at liberty to ask myself. For a very large
amount of a very deadly poison, was the obvious answer; and I thought
if all tales were true, and I were soon to be subjected to
cross-examination at the bar of Eternal Justice, it was one which would
not increase my popularity with the court. "Well, never mind, Jim,"
thought I. "I'm doing it for you."

Before eleven, a third reef was taken in the mainsail; and Johnson
filled the cabin with a storm-sail of No. 1 duck and sat cross-legged
on the streaming floor, vigorously putting it to rights with a couple of
the hands. By dinner I had fled the deck, and sat in the bench corner,
giddy, dumb, and stupefied with terror. The frightened leaps of the
poor Norah Creina, spanking like a stag for bare existence, bruised me
between the table and the berths. Overhead, the wild huntsman of the
storm passed continuously in one blare of mingled noises; screaming
wind, straining timber, lashing rope's end, pounding block and bursting
sea contributed; and I could have thought there was at times another, a
more piercing, a more human note, that dominated all, like the wailing
of an angel; I could have thought I knew the angel's name, and that his
wings were black. It seemed incredible that any creature of man's art
could long endure the barbarous mishandling of the seas, kicked as the
schooner was from mountain side to mountain side, beaten and blown upon
and wrenched in every joint and sinew, like a child upon the rack. There
was not a plank of her that did not cry aloud for mercy; and as she
continued to hold together, I became conscious of a growing sympathy
with her endeavours, a growin