Belfast was lost in a round-eyed meditation. One or two vaulted heavily into upper berths, and, once there, sighed; others dived head first inside lower bunks -- swift, and turning round instantly upon themselves, like animals going into lairs. The grating of a knife scraping burnt clay was heard. Knowles grinned no more. Davies said, in a tone of ardent conviction: -- ‘Then our skipper's looney.’Archie muttered: -- ‘My faith! we haven't heard the last of it yet!’ Four bells were struck. -- ‘Half our watch below is gone!’ cried Knowles in alarm, then reflected, ‘Well, two hours sleep is something towards a rest,’ he observed consolingly.
Some already pretended to slumber; and Charley, sound asleep, suddenly said a few slurred words in an arbitrary, blank voice. -- ‘This blamed boy has worrums!’ commented Knowles from under a blanket, and in a learned manner. Belfast got up and approached Archie's berth.
-- ‘we pulled him out,’ he whispered sadly. -- ‘And now we will have to chuck him overboard,’ went on Belfast, whose lower lip trembled. -- ‘Chuck what?’ asked Archie.
-- ‘Poor Jimmy,’ breathed out Belfast. -- ‘He be blowed!’ said Archie with untruthful brutality, and sat up in his Page 97bunk;‘It's all through him. If it hadn't been for me, there would have been murder on board this ship!’ -- ‘Tain't his fault, is it?’ argued Belfast, in a murmur; ‘I've put him to bed....and he ain't no heavier than an empty beef-cask,’he added, with tears in his eyes. Archie looked at him steadily, then turned his nose to the ship's side with determination. Belfast wandered about as though he had lost his way in the dim forecastle, and nearly fell over Donkin. He contemplated him from on high for awhile. ‘Ain't ye going to turn in?’ he asked. Donkin looked up hopelessly. --‘That black-'earted Scotch son of a thief kicked me!’he whispered from the floor, in a tone of utter desolation. -- ‘And a good job, too!’ said Belfast, still very depressed; ‘You were as near hanging as damn-it to-night, sonny. Don't you play any of your murthering games around my Jimmy! You haven't pulled him out. You just mind! 'Cos if I start to kick you’ -- he brightened up a bit -- ‘if I start to kick you, it will be Yankee fashion --to break something!’ He tapped lightly with his knuckles the top of the bowed head. ‘You moind, me bhoy!’ he concluded, cheerily. Donkin let it pass. -- ‘Will they split on me?’he asked, with pained anxiety. -- ‘Who -- split?’ hissed Belfast, coming back a step. ‘I would split your nose this minyt if I hadn't Jimmy to look after! Who d'ye think we are?’ Donkin rose and watched Belfast's back lurch through the doorway. On all sides men slept, breathing calmly. He seemed to draw courage and fury from the peace around him. Venomous and thin-faced, he glared from the ample misfit of borrowed clothes as if looking for something he could smash. His heart leaped wildly in his narrow chest. They slept! He wanted to wring necks, gouge eyes, spit on faces. He shook a dirty pair of meagre fists at the smoking lights. ‘Ye're no men!’ he cried, in a deadened tone. No one moved. ‘Yer 'aven't the pluck of a mouse!’His voice rose to a husky screech. Wamibo blinked, uncomprehending but interested. Donkin sat down heavily; he blew with force through quivering nostrils, he ground and snapped his teeth, and, with the chin pressed hard against the breast, he seemed busy gnawing his way through it, as if to get at the heart within.....
In the morning the ship, beginning another day of her wandering life, had an aspect of sumptuous freshness, like the spring-time of the earth. The washed decks glistened in a long clear stretch; the oblique sunlight struck the yellow brasses in dazzling splashes, darted over the polished rods in lines of gold, and the single drops of salt water forgotten here and there along the rail were as limpid as drops of dew, and sparkled more than scattered diamonds. The sails slept hushed by a gentle breeze.
The sun, rising lonely and splendid in the blue sky, saw a solitary ship gliding close-hauled on the blue sea.
