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I was sure of it; and just then Gambril, the austere Gambril, treated us to another vocal performance. He began to sing out for relief. His voice wailed pitifully in the darkness: "Come aft somebody! I can't stand this. Here she'll be off again directly and I can't. . . ."

Both of us, Gambril and I, shivered violently in our clinging, soaked garments of thin cotton. I said to him: "You are all right now, my man. All you've got to do is to keep the wind at the back of your head. Surely you are up to that. A child could steer this ship in smooth water." He muttered: "Aye! A healthy child."

"I can't see the upper sails, sir," declared Gambril shakily. "Don't move the helm. You'll be all right," I said confidently. The poor man's nerves were gone. Mine were not in much better case. It was the moment of breaking strain and was relieved by the abrupt sensation of the ship moving forward as if of herself under my feet.

My arms and legs seemed utterly useless, fairly worn out. They didn't even ache. But I stood up all the same to put on the coat when Ransome brought it up. And when he suggested that he had better now "take Gambril forward," I said: "All right. I'll help you to get him down on the main deck." I found that I was quite able to help, too. We raised Gambril up between us.

The men's strength was so reduced that all unnecessary calls on it had to be avoided. It was the austere Gambril with the grizzly beard. He went away readily enough, but he was so weakened by repeated bouts of fever, poor fellow, that in order to get down the poop ladder he had to turn sideways and hang on with both hands to the brass rail. It was just simply heart-breaking to watch.

As to Gambril, he was fairly choked. He coughed pitifully, the broken cough of a sick man; and I beheld him as one sees a fish in an aquarium by the light of an electric bulb, an elusive, phosphorescent shape. Only he did not glide away. But something else happened. Both binnaclelamps went out.

"What on earth are you up to? What do you mean by coming up on deck in this state?" "Just that! Boldness. The only way to scare the old bullying rascal." I pushed him, still growling, against the rail. "Hold on to it," I said roughly. I did not know what to do with him. I left him in a hurry, to go to Gambril, who had called faintly that he believed there was some wind aloft.

The austere Gambril, on the contrary, had improved temporarily. He insisted on walking on his own feet to the rail of course with assistance on each side of him. But he gave way to a sudden panic at the moment of being swung over the side and began to wail pitifully: "Don't let them drop me, sir. Don't let them drop me, sir!"

I suppose the water forced itself into them, though I wouldn't have thought that possible, for they fitted into the cowl perfectly. The last gleam of light in the universe had gone, pursued by a low exclamation of dismay from Gambril. I groped for him and seized his arm. How startlingly wasted it was. "Never mind," I said. "You don't want the light.

The blue dungaree trousers turned up the calf, one leg a little higher than the other, the clean check shirt, the white canvas cap, evidently made by himself, made up a whole of peculiar smartness, and the persistent jauntiness of his gait, even, poor fellow, when he couldn't help tottering, told of his invincible spirit. There was also a man called Gambril.