with
one hand while he drank, bending down to shelter his lips from the wind.
Wamibo had to be poked and yelled at before he saw the mug held before
his eyes. Knowles said sagaciously:--"It's better'n a tot o' rum." Mr.
Baker grunted:--"Thank ye." Mr. Creighton drank and nodded. Donkin
gulped greedily, glaring over the rim. Belfast made us laugh when with
grimacing mouth he shouted:--"Pass it this way. We're all taytottlers
here." The master, presented with the mug again by a crouching man, who
screamed up at him:--"We all had a drink, captain," groped for it without
ceasing to look ahead, and handed it back stiffly as though he could not
spare half a glance away from the ship. Faces brightened. We shouted
to the cook:--"Well done, doctor!" He sat to leeward, propped by the
water-cask and yelled back abundantly, but the seas were breaking
in thunder just then, and we only caught snatches that sounded like:
"Providence" and "born again." He was at his old game of preaching. We
made friendly but derisive gestures at him, and from below he lifted
one arm, holding on with the other, moved his lips; he beamed up to us,
straining his voice--earnest, and ducking his head before the sprays.

Suddenly some one cried:--"Where's Jimmy?" and we were appalled once
more. On the end of the row the boatswain shouted hoarsely:--"Has any one
seed him come out?" Voices exclaimed dismally:--"Drowned--is he?... No!
In his cabin!... Good Lord!... Caught like a bloomin' rat in a trap....
Couldn't open his door... Aye! She went over too quick and the water
jammed it... Poor beggar!... No help for 'im.... Let's go and see..."
"Damn him, who could go?" screamed Donkin.--"Nobody expects you to,"
growled the man next to him: "you're only a thing."--"Is there half
a chance to get at 'im?" inquired two or three men together. Belfast
untied himself with blind impetuosity, and all at once shot down to
leeward quicker than a flash of lightning. We shouted all together with
dismay; but with his legs overboard he held and yelled for a rope. In
our extremity nothing could be terrible; so we judged him funny kicking
there, and with his scared face. Some one began to laugh, and, as if
hysterically infected with screaming merriment, all those haggard men
went off laughing, wild-eyed, like a lot of maniacs tied up on a wall.
Mr. Baker swung off the binnacle-stand and tendered him one leg. He
scrambled up rather scared, and consigning us with abominable words t