slightest sign of hanging back. The very thought of it exasperated him.
He couldn't hang back. They shouldn't.

The impetuosity with which he came amongst them carried them along. They
had already been excited and startled at all his comings and goings--by
the fierceness and rapidity of his movements; and more felt than seen
in his rushes, he appeared formidable--busied with matters of life and
death that brooked no delay. At his first word he heard them drop into
the bunker one after another obediently, with heavy thumps.

They were not clear as to what would have to be done. "What is it? What
is it?" they were asking each other. The boatswain tried to explain;
the sounds of a great scuffle surprised them: and the mighty shocks,
reverberating awfully in the black bunker, kept them in mind of their
danger. When the boatswain threw open the door it seemed that an eddy of
the hurricane, stealing through the iron sides of the ship, had set all
these bodies whirling like dust: there came to them a confused uproar,
a tempestuous tumult, a fierce mutter, gusts of screams dying away, and
the tramping of feet mingling with the blows of the sea.

For a moment they glared amazed, blocking the doorway. Jukes pushed
through them brutally. He said nothing, and simply darted in. Another
lot of coolies on the ladder, struggling suicidally to break through the
battened hatch to a swamped deck, fell off as before, and he disappeared
under them like a man overtaken by a landslide.

The boatswain yelled excitedly: "Come along. Get the mate out. He'll be
trampled to death. Come on."

They charged in, stamping on breasts, on fingers, on faces, catching