roke out, like the sound of a great sheaf
of rockets, and forthwith the numberless crowd roared at the top of
its voice, with the frenzied fury of an insurgent mob. Then, suddenly,
through it all, came orders shouted in a strident voice, more powerful
than the tumult. Then a profound silence. And then a crack of sharp,
hurried explosions, followed by the frightful rattle of a machine-gun.

This lasted for at least two or three minutes. The uproar had
recommenced; and it continued until Simon could no longer hear the
fizzing of the fireworks and the din of the shooting. They seemed
still to be fighting. They were dispatching the wounded amid curses
and shrieks of pain; and a batch of dying men was flung into the hold.

The evening and the night wore through. Simon, who had not touched
food since his meal with Dolores beside the lake, was also suffering
cruelly from the lack of air, the weight of the dead and the living on
his chest, the gag which bruised his jaw and the blanket which wrapped
his head like a blind, air-tight hood. Were they going to leave him to
die of starvation and asphyxia, in this huddle of sticky, decomposing
flesh, above which floated the inarticulate plaint of death?

His bandaged eyes received a feeling as though the day were breaking.
His torpid neighbours were swarming like slimy reptiles in a tub.
Then, from above, a voice growled:

"No easy job to find him! . . . Queer notions the chief has! As well
try and pick a worm out of the mud!"

"Take my boat-hook," said another voice. "You can use it to turn the
stiffs over like a scavenger sorting a heap of muck. . . . Lower down
than that, old man! Since yesterday morning, the bloke must be at the
bottom. . . ."

And the first voice cried:

"That's him! There, look, to the left! That's him! I know my rope
around his waist. . . . Patience a moment, while I hook him!"

Simon felt something digging into him that must have been the spike of
the boat-hook catching in his bonds. He was hooked, dragged along and
hoisted from corpse to corpse to the top of the hold. The men
unfastened his legs and told him to stand up:

"Now then, you! Up with you, my hearty!"

His eyes still bandaged, he was seized by the arms and led out of the
wreck. They crossed the arena, whose pebbles he felt under foot, and
mounted another flight of steps, leading to the deck of another wreck.
There the men halted.

From here, when his hood and gag were removed, Simon co