In the start forward he bumped the back of Captain MacWhirr, who didn't
move; and then a hand gripped his thigh. A lull had come, a menacing
lull of the wind, the holding of a stormy breath--and he felt himself
pawed all over. It was the boatswain. Jukes recognized these hands, so
thick and enormous that they seemed to belong to some new species of
man.

The boatswain had arrived on the bridge, crawling on all fours against
the wind, and had found the chief mate's legs with the top of his head.
Immediately he crouched and began to explore Jukes' person upwards with
prudent, apologetic touches, as became an inferior.

He was an ill-favoured, undersized, gruff sailor of fifty, coarsely
hairy, short-legged, long-armed, resembling an elderly ape. His
strength was immense; and in his great lumpy paws, bulging like brown
boxing-gloves on the end of furry forearms, the heaviest objects were
handled like playthings. Apart from the grizzled pelt on his chest, the
menacing demeanour and the hoarse voice, he had none of the classical
attributes of his rating. His good nature almost amounted to imbecility:
the men did what they liked with him, and he had not an ounce of
initiative in his character, which was easy-going and talkative. For
these reasons Jukes disliked him; but Captain MacWhirr, to Jukes'
scornful disgust, seemed to regard him as a first-rate petty officer.

He pulled himself up by Jukes' coat, taking that liberty with the
greatest moderation, and only so far as it was forced upon him by the
hurricane.

"What is it, boss'n, what is it?" yelled Jukes, impatiently. What could
that fraud of a boss'n want on the bridge? The typhoon had got on Jukes'