back terrified at the sight of the smoking swells. He fancied he
heard a gun and a horn and shouting. Something bigger than the
dory, but quite as lively, loomed alongside. Several voices talked
at once; he was dropped into a dark, heaving hole, where men in
oilskins gave him a hot drink and took off his clothes, and he
fell asleep.

When he waked he listened for the first breakfast-bell on the
steamer, wondering why his stateroom had grown so small. Turning,
he looked into a narrow, triangular cave, lit by a lamp hung
against a huge square beam. A three-cornered table within arm's
reach ran from the angle of the bows to the foremast. At the after end,
behind a well-used Plymouth stove, sat a boy about his own age,
with a flat red face and a pair of twinkling grey eyes. He was
dressed in a blue jersey and high rubber boots. Several pairs of
the same sort of foot-wear, an old cap, and some worn-out woolen
socks lay on the floor, and black and yellow oilskins swayed to
and fro beside the bunks. The place was packed as full of smells
as a bale is of cotton. The oilskins had a peculiarly thick
flavour of their own which made a sort of background to the smells
of fried fish, burnt grease, paint, pepper, and stale tobacco; but
these, again, were all hooped together by one encircling smell of
ship and salt water. Harvey saw with disgust that there were no
sheets on his bed-place. He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking
full of lumps and nubbles. Then, too, the boat's motion was not
that of a steamer. She was neither sliding nor rolling, but rather
wriggling herself about in a silly, aimless way, like a colt at
the end of a halter. Water-noises ran by close to his ear, and
beams creaked and whined about him. All these things made him
grunt despairingly and think of his mother.