water. He could be
heard splashing; a sea came on board with a thump. "He's got his bath
already," remarked a grim shellback. "Aye, aye!" grunted others. Then,
after a long silence, Wamibo made strange noises. "Hallo, what's up with
you?" said some one grumpily. "He says he would have gone for Davy,"
explained Archie, who was the Finn's interpreter generally. "I believe
him!" cried voices.... "Never mind, Dutchy... You'll do, muddle-head....
Your turn will come soon enough... You don't know when ye're well off."
They ceased, and all together turned their faces to the door. Singleton
stepped in, advanced two paces, and stood swaying slightly. The sea
hissed, flowed roaring past the bows, and the forecastle trembled, full
of deep murmurs; the lamp flared, swinging like a pendulum. He looked
with a dreamy and puzzled stare, as though he could not distinguish
the still men from their restless shadows. There were awestruck
exclamations:--"Hallo, hallo"... "How does it look outside now,
Singleton?" Those who sat on the hatch lifted their eyes in silence, and
the next oldest seaman in the ship (those two understood one another,
though they hardly exchanged three words in a day) gazed up at his
friend attentively for a moment, then taking a short clay pipe out of
his mouth, offered it without a word. Singleton put out his arm towards
it, missed, staggered, and suddenly fell forward, crashing down, stiff
and headlong like an uprooted tree. There was a swift rush. Men pushed,
crying:--"He's done!"... "Turn him over!"... "Stand clear there!" Under
a crowd of startled faces bending over him he lay on his back, staring
upwards in a continuous and intolerable manner. In the breathless
silence of a general consternation, he said in a grating murmur:--"I am
all right," and clutched with his hands. They helped him up. He mumbled
despondently:--"I am getting old... old."--"Not you," cried Belfast, with
ready tact. Supported on all sides, he hung his head.--"Are you better?"
they asked. He glared at them from under his eyebrows with large black
eyes, spreading over his chest the bushy whiteness of a beard long and
thick.--"Old! old!" he repeated sternly. Helped along, he reached his
bunk. There was in it a slimy soft heap of something that smelt, as does
at dead low water a muddy foreshore. It was his soaked straw bed. With
a convulsive effort he pitched himself on it, and in the darkness of
the narrow place could be heard growling angrily