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As for the quarry shafts themselves, they too were covered round the tips with the green turf, and down them led a narrow flight of steep-cut steps, with a slide of soap-stone at the side, on which the marble blocks were once hauled up by wooden winches.
A sawmill shrieked complainingly; a noisy switch-engine shunted rows of flat cars back and forth, tooting lustily; the rattle of steam- winches and the cries of stevedores from a discharging freighter echoed against the hillsides. Close huddled at the water-front lay the old cannery buildings, greatly expanded and multiplied now and glistening with fresh paint.
"Stop, Señor!" suddenly screamed the native engineer, waving his arms excitedly and cutting off the steam. "The drums turn si but the cables do not rise. Something has caught the men!" "Loose the winches a little!" ordered Captain Britten sharply. "The air-hoses are strained almost to the breaking point." "Si," mumbled the engineer, easing off the brake a trifle.
The emigrants Austrians, Bohemians, wild Poles, filthy, crawling Russian Jews, bestial Armenians, human debris which even soldier-coveting Middle Europe rejected these were herded down into the holds, as rich cargo was dug out by the straining winches, and given to the thankless sea to make space for them.
The serang and the Malay crew were overhauling the cargo chains and trying the winches; their voices sounded subdued on the deck below and their movements were languid. That tropical daybreak was chilly. The Malay quartermaster, coming up to get something from the lockers on the bridge, shivered visibly.
"She's going to try to get the Martha off, I should say. Or else why did she pay fifty-five quid for her? And if she fails, she'll try to get her money back by saving the gear spars, you know, and patent steering- gear, and winches, and such things. At least that's what I'd do if I was in her place.
Even with so small a craft as the Lizzie there was commotion. Orders flew from lip to lip. Creaking cables strained at unyielding bollards. Gangways clattered out from deck, and ran down on to the quay with a crash. Hatches were flung open and the steam winches rattled incessantly. Standing and Harker were looking on from a vantage point well clear of the work of unloading.
In the old settlements as much as two months before that day some of them had been built several business houses of wood and corrugated sheet-iron reared above the canvas roofs of their neighbors, displaying in their windows all the wares which might be classified among the needs of those who had come to break the desert, from anvils to zitherns; from beads, beds, and bridles to winches, wagons, water bottles, and collapsible cups.
The sea breeze was blowing outside, but no wind could enter the gap in the trees, and foul exhalations from warm mud and slime poisoned the stagnant air. Kit's head ached, his eyes hurt, and his joints were sore; he felt strangely limp and it cost him an effort to get about. All the while the winches hammered and pulleys screamed as the cases came up and the empty slings went down.
The waves had washed over the building, tearing off the temporary covers, and churning all within. Planks, scaffolding everything floatable-had gone, and strewed the rock with matchwood; and a marvel to see-one of his two heaviest winches had been lifted from inside, hurled clean over the wall, and lay collapsed in the wreckage of its cast-iron frame.
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