budge
on his neck,--like a stone head fixed to look one way from a column.
During a roll that all but took his booted legs from under him, and
in the very stagger to save himself, Captain MacWhirr said austerely,
"Don't you pay any attention to what that man says." And then, with an
indefinable change of tone, very grave, he added, "He isn't on duty."

The sailor said nothing.

The hurricane boomed, shaking the little place, which seemed air-tight;
and the light of the binnacle flickered all the time.

"You haven't been relieved," Captain MacWhirr went on, looking down. "I
want you to stick to the helm, though, as long as you can. You've
got the hang of her. Another man coming here might make a mess of it.
Wouldn't do. No child's play. And the hands are probably busy with a job
down below. . . . Think you can?"

The steering-gear leaped into an abrupt short clatter, stopped
smouldering like an ember; and the still man, with a motionless gaze,
burst out, as if all the passion in him had gone into his lips: "By
Heavens, sir! I can steer for ever if nobody talks to me."

"Oh! aye! All right. . . ." The Captain lifted his eyes for the first
time to the man, ". . . Hackett."

And he seemed to dismiss this matter from his mind. He stooped to the
engine-room speaking-tube, blew in, and bent his head. Mr. Rout below
answered, and at once Captain MacWhirr put his lips to the mouthpiece.

With the uproar of the gale around him he applied alternately his lips
and his ear, and the engineer's voice mounted to him, harsh and as if
out of the heat of an engagement. One of the stokers was disabled,
the others had given in, the second engineer and the donkey-man were
firing-up. The third engineer was standing by the steam-valve. The
engines were being tended by hand. How was it above?

"Bad enough. It mostly rests with you," said Captain MacWhirr. Was the
mate down there yet? No? Well, he would be presently. Would Mr. Rout
let him talk through the speaking-tube?--through the deck speaking-tube,
because he--the Captain--was going out again on the bridge directly.
There was some trouble amongst the Chinamen. They were fighting, it
seemed. Couldn't allow fighting anyhow. . . .

Mr. Rout had gone away, and Captain MacWhirr could feel against his ear
the pulsation of the engines, like the beat of the ship's heart. Mr.
Rout's voice down there shouted something distantly. The ship pitched
headlong, the pulsation leaped with a hissin