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The deckload, double-lashed, held, although the deckhouse groaned and twisted until Matt Peasley regretted the impulse that had impelled him to do this foolish thing for the sake of satisfying a grudge. "She'll make it, sir," the man at the wheel called up; but Matt's face was a little white and serious as he tried to smile back.
At first sight it seemed so, but he had not time to think it out then. The men were returning. Bulla was speaking this time, and Hilliard soon found he was telling a somewhat improper story. As the two men disappeared round the deckhouse he heard their hoarse laughter ring out. Then the captain cried: "That you, Coburn?" The murmur of voices grew louder and more confused and immediately sank.
Their minds were made up and their hearts beat steadily. They were all desperate men determined to fight and to die and troubling not about the manner of living or dying. This was not the case with Mrs. Travers who, having shut herself up in the deckhouse, was profoundly troubled about those very things, though she, too, felt desperate enough to welcome almost any solution.
He felt dull and shrank from effort, but when he saw Brown in a boat alongside he jumped on board. The light was getting brighter and the wreck lay about a hundred yards off. The stump of her broken funnel, a bare iron mast, a smashed deckhouse, and a strip of slanted side rose from the languid swell. The rows of plates were red with rust and encrusted by shells.
A ship where no one was had about it suggestions of "other things." She was afraid to enter the gloomy deckhouse, and afraid to remain alone outside; she compromised matters by sitting down on the deck.
Port, starboard, and masthead lights; teak gratings; sliding sashes of the deckhouse; the captain's chest of drawers, with charts and chart-table; photographs, brackets, and looking-glasses; cabin doors; rubber cuddy mats; hatch-irons; half the funnel-stays; cork fenders; carpenter's grindstone and tool-chest; holystones, swabs, squeegees; all cabin and pantry lamps; galley-fittings en bloc; flags and flag-locker; clocks, chronometers; the forward compass and the ship's bell and belfry, were among the missing.
But this was not the tone of a frightened person. It flashed through his mind that she had become self-conscious, and there he stopped in his speculation. That friend of women remained discreet even in his thoughts. He stepped backward further into the Cage and without surprise saw Mrs. Travers follow Lingard into the deckhouse. Lingard stood the lantern on the table. Its light was very poor.
She was confounded by his secret vehemence. But instantly succeeding his fierce whisper came a short, inane society laugh and a much louder, "Not that I attach any importance . . ." He sprang away, as it were, from his wife, and as he went over the gangway waved his hand to her amiably. Lighted dimly by the lantern on the roof of the deckhouse Mrs.
"I wish they was gone." He looked up at the furled sails. "They ain't and neither is we." "There's work to be done," said Roger, "and we must be about it. Leave the nets as they are. Stack the muskets in the waist, pile the pikes handy by the deckhouse, and all lay aft. We'd best have a few words together before we begin."
It was only then that he stirred slightly and turned away from the loom of the fires on the distant shore. Mrs. Travers heard his footsteps passing again along the side of the deckhouse and this time never raised her head. That man was sleepless, mad, childish, and inflexible. He was impossible. He haunted the decks of that hulk aimlessly. . . .
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