"Are you thinking of the coolies, sir? I rigged lifelines all ways
across that 'tween-deck."

"Did you? Good idea, Mr. Jukes."

"I didn't . . . think you cared to . . . know," said Jukes--the lurching
of the ship cut his speech as though somebody had been jerking him
around while he talked--"how I got on with . . . that infernal job. We
did it. And it may not matter in the end."

"Had to do what's fair, for all--they are only Chinamen. Give them the
same chance with ourselves--hang it all. She isn't lost yet. Bad enough
to be shut up below in a gale--"

"That's what I thought when you gave me the job, sir," interjected
Jukes, moodily.

"--without being battered to pieces," pursued Captain MacWhirr with
rising vehemence. "Couldn't let that go on in my ship, if I knew she
hadn't five minutes to live. Couldn't bear it, Mr. Jukes."

A hollow echoing noise, like that of a shout rolling in a rocky chasm,
approached the ship and went away again. The last star, blurred,
enlarged, as if returning to the fiery mist of its beginning, struggled
with the colossal depth of blackness hanging over the ship--and went
out.

"Now for it!" muttered Captain MacWhirr. "Mr. Jukes."

"Here, sir."