Then I
went back through the drenching seas to the hatch. There was just
enough room for a man's body to squeeze through down the ladder. I
went down into the same hell-broth of sweat and confusion. The
ground you stood upon might have been the back of a super-Titanic
butterfly. Stability was a nonexistent term. It was a helpless
scuttering surge of men and vast wooden cubes. Most of the men had
torn off their upper garments and fought half naked, the sweat
glistening on their skins in the feeble light. Soon the heat became
unbearable and I too tore off jersey and shirt. Liosha joined me
and we worked together without speaking. Her long thick hair had
come down and she had hastily tied it in a knot, just as you might
tie a knot in a towel, and she had thrown off things like everybody
else and only a flimsy cotton, sleeveless bodice, or whatever it's
called, drenched through and sticking to her, made a pretence of
covering her from her waist.

"You had to get like flies round these infernal things and wait
your time--if you could--for the roll, and push and then scramble
with ropes and make fast; awl at the same time dance out of the way
of the slithering hulks that bore down on you with fantastic
murderousness. And through it all thundered the roaring of the
storm, the grind of the engines, the shattering of the propeller
lifted above the waves, and the shrieks and creakings of every
plank and plate of this steam-driven old Noah's Ark.

"We had just, with exhausted muscles, made a whole stack fast, and
were standing by, panting, haggard eyed, the sweat running down
anyhow, twenty of us, Dagoes, Dutchmen, Englishmen, in the dim
twilight--just a shaft of pale illumination coming slick down the
ladder where the hatch was open,--hanging on to edges and corners
of cargo, when suddenly the ship, caught on top of a wave, vibrated
in a sickening shudder, plunged, and then with an impetus of
cataclysm wallowed to starboard. Andrews shrieked, 'Stand clear!'
Most of the men leaped and flung themselves away. But I stumbled
and fell. Before I realized the danger of a vast sliding crate,
two strong arms were curled round my waist and I was flung aside,
to slither and roll down the swaying deck until I was stopped by
the bulkhead. When I picked myself up,