worst was to come yet! He was glad the trouble in the 'tween-deck had
been discovered in time. If the ship had to go after all, then, at
least, she wouldn't be going to the bottom with a lot of people in
her fighting teeth and claw. That would have been odious. And in that
feeling there was a humane intention and a vague sense of the fitness of
things.

These instantaneous thoughts were yet in their essence heavy and slow,
partaking of the nature of the man. He extended his hand to put back the
matchbox in its corner of the shelf. There were always matches there--by
his order. The steward had his instructions impressed upon him long
before. "A box . . . just there, see? Not so very full . . . where I can
put my hand on it, steward. Might want a light in a hurry. Can't tell on
board ship what you might want in a hurry. Mind, now."

And of course on his side he would be careful to put it back in its
place scrupulously. He did so now, but before he removed his hand it
occurred to him that perhaps he would never have occasion to use that
box any more. The vividness of the thought checked him and for an
infinitesimal fraction of a second his fingers closed again on the small
object as though it had been the symbol of all these little habits that
chain us to the weary round of life. He released it at last, and letting
himself fall on the settee, listened for the first sounds of returning
wind.

Not yet. He heard only the wash of water, the heavy splashes, the dull
shocks of the confused seas boarding his ship from all sides. She would
never have a chance to clear her decks.

But the quietude of the air was startlingly tense and unsafe, like a