In primitive communities, from time immemorial, the strongest man has
become chieftain through sheer natural selection. Societies which have
been upheaved to their roots by anarchy, panic, or any of these more
perfervid emotions, revert to the primitive state. On this Portuguese
ship, authority was smashed into the smallest atoms, and every man
became a savage and was in danger at the hands of his fellow savage.

Rabeira had drunk himself into a stupor before the boilers had roared
themselves empty through the escapes. The two mates and the engineers
cowered in their rooms as though the doors were a barrier against the
small-pox germs. The Krooboys broached cargo and strewed the decks with
their half-naked bodies, drunk on gin, amid a litter of smashed
green cases.

Meals ceased. The Portuguese cook and steward dropped their collective
duties from the first alarm; the Kroo cook left the rice steamer because
"steam no more lib"; and any one who felt hunger or thirst on board,
foraged for himself, or went without satisfying his wants. Nobody helped
the sick, or chided the drunken. Each man lived for himself alone--or
died, as the mood seized him.

Nilssen took up his quarters at one end of the bridge, frightened, but
apathetic. With awnings he made himself a little canvas house, airy, but
sufficient to keep off the dews of night. When he spoke, it was usually
to picture the desolation of one or other of the Mrs. Nilssens on
finding herself a widow. As he said himself, he was a man of very
domesticated notions. He had no sympathy with Kettle's constantly
repeated theory that discipline ought to be restored.