the cook helping him to get
something for the men. They'd been roping her hatches. The covers
were beginning to come adrift, y'understand. The cook, he was slipping
about, grousing all round. Then she stopped dead, and the lights went
out. Something swept right over us with a hell of a rush, and I felt
the deck give under my feet. The galley filled with water. 'Christ,
she's done,' shouted the cook.

"We scrambled out. It was too dark to see anything, but we could hear
the old man shouting. The engines had stopped. I fell over some
wreckage." The sailor stroked his nose. "This is what it did.

"Next morning you wouldn't have known the old _Starlight_. All her
boats had gone, and she had a list to port like a roof. You wanted to
be a bird to get about her. The crowd looked blue enough when they saw
the falls flying around at daylight, and only bits of boats. It was a
case. Every time she lay down in the trough, and a sea went over her
solid, we watched her come up again. She took her time about it.

"The engineers were at it below, trying to get her clear. They had the
donkey going. In the afternoon we sighted a steamer's smoke to
westward. She bore down on us. I never seen anything I liked better
than that. Then the Chief came up, and I saw him talking to the old
man. The old man climbed round to us. 'Now, lads,' he said, 'there's
a Cunarder coming. But the engineer says he reckons he's getting her
clear of water. What about it? Shall I signal the liner, or will you
stand by her?'

"We let the Cunarder go. I watched her out of sight. We hung around,
and just about sunset the Chief came up again. I heard what he said.
'It's overhauling us fast, sir,' he said to the old man. The old man,
he stood looking down at the deck. Nobody said anything for a spell.
Then a fireman shot through a companion on all fours, scrambled to the
bulwarks, and looked out. He began cursing the sun, shaking his fist
at it every time it popped over the seas. It was low down. It was
funny to hear him. 'So long, chaps,' he said, and dropped overside.

"We waited all night. I couldn't sleep, what with the noise of the
seas running over us, and waiting for something to happen. It was
perishing cold, too. At sun-up I could see she might pitch under at
any time. She was about awash. The old man came to me and the
steward, and said: 'Give the men all the gin they'll drink. Fill 'em
up.' Some of 'em took i