-gear with a face like death.
At first I couldn't get anybody to crawl out and relieve the poor devil.
That boss'n's worse than no good, I always said. Thought I would have
had to go myself and haul out one of them by the neck."

"Ah, well," muttered the Captain. He stood watchful by Jukes' side.

"The second mate's in there, too, holding his head. Is he hurt, sir?"

"No--crazy," said Captain MacWhirr, curtly.

"Looks as if he had a tumble, though."

"I had to give him a push," explained the Captain.

Jukes gave an impatient sigh.

"It will come very sudden," said Captain MacWhirr, "and from over there,
I fancy. God only knows though. These books are only good to muddle your
head and make you jumpy. It will be bad, and there's an end. If we only
can steam her round in time to meet it. . . ."

A minute passed. Some of the stars winked rapidly and vanished.

"You left them pretty safe?" began the Captain abruptly, as though the
silence were unbearable.

"Are you thinking of the coolies, sir? I rigged lifelines all ways
across that 'tween-deck."

"Did you? Good idea, Mr. Jukes."

"I didn't . . . think you cared to . . . know," said Jukes--the lurching
of the ship cut his speech as though somebody had been jerking him
around while he talked--"how I got on with . . . that infernal job. We
did it. And it may not matter in the end."

"Had to do what's fair, for all--they are only Chinamen. Give them the
same chance with ourselves--hang it all. She isn't lost yet. Bad enough
to be shut up below in a gale--"

"That's what I thought when you gave me the job, sir," interjected
Jukes, moodily.

"--without being battered to pieces," pursued Captain MacWhirr with
rising vehemence. "Couldn't let that go on in my ship, if I knew she
hadn't five minutes to live. Couldn't bear it, Mr. Jukes."

A hollow echoing noise, like that of a shout rolling in a rocky chasm,
approached the ship and went away again. The last star, blurred,
enlarged, as if returning to the fiery mist of its beginning, struggled
with the colossal depth of blackness hanging over the ship--and went
out.

"Now for it!" muttered Captain MacWhirr. "Mr. Jukes."

"Here, sir."

The two men were growing indistinct to each other.

"We must trust her to go through it and come out on the other side.
That's plain and straight. There's no room for Captain Wilson's
storm-strategy here."

"No, sir."

"She will be smothered and swept again for hours," mumbl