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Updated: June 28, 2025
The place was somehow strange, with its double row of empty bunks like vacant coffin-shelves in a vault, but solitude was what he desired. The slush-lamp swung and stank and made the shadows wander. From the other side of the bulkhead he could hear stirrings and a murmur of voices as the starboard watch grew aware that something had happened on deck.
I struck a match and lit the swinging slush-lamp, which made a dismal, smoking flame and added to the heat and the multitude of smells which made the forecastle a hole of torture. But the light was comforting, and Rajah crept to his master's side and clung to his arm, the boy's mouth open and his eyes full of questions.
But my name ain't Keogh, you know, though I always went by that. My father died when I was a kiddy, and my mother married again, so I got called by my stepfather's name all my life. This is my right name, and it's a poor man's name to-day." And as the two men bent over him in the light of the flickering slush-lamp, he wrote, with stiff, uncertain fingers, "Patrick Henry Considine."
"Begin at the beginning," she interrupted. "Remember, I know nothing." He settled himself more comfortably on the stool, and rolled a cigarette as he took up the history of the previous night. "It must have been about one in the morning when I was awakened by the lighting of the slush-lamp.
She took the pistol without a word, and the austerity of her manner as she did so, even in that moment, set him wondering what was the cause of it. But he had little time to dwell upon the matter for more footsteps were audible, and a voice grunted words that he did not catch. He picked up an ax, put it ready to his hand close to the door and then extinguished the slush-lamp.
They swayed backward and forward, panted, sweated, like some cyclopean, many-legged monster rising from the lower deeps. The slush-lamp went over, drowned in its own fat, while the midday twilight scarce percolated through the dirty canvas of the tent. "For the love of Gawd, Jan, get yer senses back!" pleaded Red Bill. "We ain't goin' to hurt yeh, 'r kill yeh, 'r anythin' of that sort.
This time he had been away a long while, and when the slush-lamp was lit and fairly going, how we stared and wondered at his altered looks! He had grown a long whisker, and must have stood inches higher than Dad. Dad was delighted.
And no man, thinly clad, could live long in the open boat. Also, I knew just about how long it would take to launch the boat. So, by the light of the wildly swinging slush-lamp, to the tumult on deck and to cries of "She's sinking!" I proceeded to ransack my sea-chest for suitable garments. Also, since they would never use them again, I ransacked the sea chests of my shipmates.
The place was unlighted, save by means of the scuttle, and by a kettle-shaped slush-lamp that swung, flaring and emitting a long streamer of fat, black smoke, from the centre beam.
She did not seem to be affected. "Bella came over to me, but I closed my eyes and breathed regularly. She held the slush-lamp to me, but I played sleep naturally enough to fool her. Then I heard a snort of sudden awakening and alarm, and a cry, and I looked out. The Indian was hacking at Borg with a knife, and Borg was warding off with his arms and trying to grapple him.
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