sick kids. Finally, one of them said that if there had been at least
some light to see each other's noses by, it wouldn't be so bad. It was
making him crazy, he declared, to lie there in the dark waiting for the
blamed hooker to sink.

"Why don't you step outside, then, and be done with it at once?" the
boatswain turned on him.

This called up a shout of execration. The boatswain found himself
overwhelmed with reproaches of all sorts. They seemed to take it ill
that a lamp was not instantly created for them out of nothing. They
would whine after a light to get drowned by--anyhow! And though the
unreason of their revilings was patent--since no one could hope to reach
the lamp-room, which was forward--he became greatly distressed. He did
not think it was decent of them to be nagging at him like this. He told
them so, and was met by general contumely. He sought refuge, therefore,
in an embittered silence. At the same time their grumbling and sighing
and muttering worried him greatly, but by-and-by it occurred to him that
there were six globe lamps hung in the 'tween-deck, and that there could
be no harm in depriving the coolies of one of them.

The Nan-Shan had an athwartship coal-bunker, which, being at times used
as cargo space, communicated by an iron door with the fore 'tween-deck.
It was empty then, and its manhole was the foremost one in the alleyway.
The boatswain could get in, therefore, without coming out on deck at
all; but to his great surprise he found he could induce no one to help
him in taking off the manhole cover. He groped for it all the same, but
one of the crew lying in his way refused to budge.

"Why, I only want to get you that blamed light you are crying for," he