"Don't you get up yet, sir," cried the boatswain. "No hurry!"

A sea swept over. Jukes understood the boatswain to splutter that the
bridge ladders were gone. "I'll lower you down, sir, by your hands,"
he screamed. He shouted also something about the smoke-stack being
as likely to go overboard as not. Jukes thought it very possible, and
imagined the fires out, the ship helpless. . . . The boatswain by his
side kept on yelling. "What? What is it?" Jukes cried distressfully; and
the other repeated, "What would my old woman say if she saw me now?"

In the alleyway, where a lot of water had got in and splashed in the
dark, the men were still as death, till Jukes stumbled against one of
them and cursed him savagely for being in the way. Two or three voices
then asked, eager and weak, "Any chance for us, sir?"

"What's the matter with you fools?" he said brutally. He felt as though
he could throw himself down amongst them and never move any more. But
they seemed cheered; and in the midst of obsequious warnings, "Look
out! Mind that manhole lid, sir," they lowered him into the bunker. The
boatswain tumbled down after him, and as soon as he had picked himself
up he remarked, "She would say, 'Serve you right, you old fool, for
going to sea.'"

The boatswain had some means, and made a point of alluding to them
frequently. His wife--a fat woman--and two grown-up daughters kept a
greengrocer's shop in the East-end of London.

In the dark, Jukes, unsteady on his legs, listened to a faint thunderous
patter. A deadened screaming went on steadily at his elbow, as it were;