‘Ten days. Strike me blind if I hever!....You will be dead by this time to-morrow p'r'aps. Ten days!’ He waited for a while.‘D'ye 'ear me? Blamme if yer don't look dead halready.’Jimmy must have been collecting his strength for he said almost aloud -- ‘You're a stinking, cadging liar. Every one knows you.’ And sitting up, against all probability, startled his visitor horribly. But very soon Donkin recovered himself. He blustered, ‘What?
What? Who's a liar? You hare -- the crowd hare -- the skipper -- heverybody.
I haint! Putting on hairs! w ho's yer?’ He nearly choked himself with indignation. ‘Who's yer to put on hairs,’ he repeated trembling. ‘'Ave one -- 'ave one, says 'ee -- an' cawn't heat 'em 'isself. Now I'll 'ave both. By Gawd -- I will! Yer nobody!’He plunged into the lower bunk, rooted in there and brought to light another dusty biscuit. He held it up before Jimmy -- weethen took a bite defiantly.
‘What now?’ he asked with feverish impatience. ‘Yer may take one -- says yer. Why not giv' me both?
No. I'm a mangy dorg. One for a mangy dorg.I'll tyke both. Can yer stop me? Try. Come on. Try.’Jimmy was clasping his legs and hiding his face on the knees. His shirt clung to him. Every rib was visible. His emaciated back was shaken in repeated jerks by the panting catches of his breath.
‘Yer won't? Yer can't? What did I say?’went on Donkin fiercely. He swallowed another dry mouthful with a hasty effort. The other's silent helplessness, his weakness, his shrinking attitude exasperated him.‘Ye're done!’ he cried. ‘Who's yer to be lied to; to be waited on 'and and foot like a bloomin' hymperor.
Yer nobody. Yer no one at all!’ he spluttered with such a strength of unerring conviction that it shook him from head to foot in coming out, and left him vibrating like a released string.
Jimmy rallied again. He lifted his head and turned bravely at Donkin, who saw a strange face, an unknown face, a fantastic and grimacing mask of despair and fury. Its lips moved rapidly; and hollow, moaning, whistling sounds filled the cabin with a vague mutter full of menace, complaint and desolation, like the far-off murmur of a rising wind. Wait shook his head; rolled his eyes; he denied, cursed, menaced -- and not a word had the strength to pass beyond the sorrowful pout of those black lips. It was incomprehensible and disturbing; a gibberish of emotions, a frantic dumb show of speech pleading for impossible things, threatening a shadowy vengeance. It sobered Donkin into a scrutinising watchfulness.
‘Yer can't holler. See? What did I tell yer?’he said slowly after a moment of attentive examination. The other kept on headlong and unheard, nodding passionately, grinning with grotesque and appalling flashes of big white teeth. Donkin, as if fascinated by the dumb eloquence and anger of that black phantom, approached, stretching his neck out with distrustful curiosity; and it seemed to him suddenly that he was looking only at the shadow of a man crouching high in the bunk on the level with his eyes. -- ‘What? What?’ he said.
He seemed to catch the shape of some words in the continuous panting hiss.
‘Yer will tell Belfast! Will yer? Hare yer a bloomin' kid?’He trembled with alarm and rage. ‘Tell yer gran'mother! Yer afeard!
Who's yer ter be afeard more'n hanyone?’ His passionate sense of his own importance ran away with a last remnant of caution. ‘Tell an' be damned! Tell if yer can!’ he cried. ‘I've been treated worse'n a dorg by your blooming back-lickers. They 'as set me on, honly to turn against me, I ham the honly man Page 113'ere. They choked me, kicked me -- an' yer laffed -- yer black, rotten incumbrance, you! You will pay fur it. They giv' yer their grub, their water -- yer will pay fur hit to me, by Gawd! Who haxed me ter 'ave a drink of water? They put their bloomin' rags on yer that night, an' what did they giv' ter me -- a clout on the bloomin' mouth -- blast their....S'elp me!....Yer will pay fur hit with yer money. Hi'm goin' ter 'ave it in a minyte; has soon has ye're dead, yer bloomin' useless fraud. That's the man I ham. An ye're a thing -- -- a bloody thing. Yah -- you corpse!
He flung at Jimmy's head the biscuit he had been all the time clutching hard, but it only grazed, and striking with a loud crack the bulkhead beyond burst like a hand-grenade into flying pieces. James Wait, as though wounded mortally, fell back on the pillow. His lips ceased to move and the rolling eyes became quiet and stared upwards with an intense and steady persistence. Donkin was surprised; he sat suddenly on the chest, and looked down, exhausted and gloomy. After a moment he began to mutter to himself, ‘Die, you beggar -- die. Somebody'll come in.....Iwish I was drunk....Ten days....Hoysters....’ He looked up and spoke louder. ‘No....no more for yer....no more bloomin' gals that cook hoysters....Who's yer? Hit's my turn now.... I wish I was drunk;I would soon giv' you a leg up haloft. That's where y er will go. Feet first, through a port....Splash! Never see yer hany more. Hoverboard! Good 'nuff fur yer.’Jimmy's head moved slightly and he turned his eyes to Donkin's face; a gaze unbelieving, desolated and appealing, of a child frightened by the menace of being shut up alone in the dark. Donkin observed him from the chest with hopeful eyes; then without rising he tried the lid. Locked.
