was a difference, I found that Hugo's narrative had stirred me more
profoundly than was I stirred by this actual struggle before my eyes.

I have repeatedly said that the sea makes one hard. I now realized
how hard I had become as I stood there at the break of the poop in my
wind-shipped, spray-soaked pyjamas. I felt no solicitude for the
forecastle humans who struggled in peril of their lives beneath me.
They did not count. Ah--I was even curious to see what might happen,
did they get caught by those crashing avalanches of sea ere they
could gain the safety of the fife-rail.

And I saw. Mr. Pike, in the lead, of course, up to his waist in
rushing water, dashed in, caught the flying wreckage with a turn of
rope, and fetched it up short with a turn around one of the port
mizzen-shrouds. The Elsinore flung down to port, and a solid wall of
down-toppling green upreared a dozen feet above the rail. The men
fled to the fife-rail. But Mr. Pike, holding his turn, held on,
looked squarely into the wall of the wave, and received the downfall.
He emerged, still holding by the turn the captured bridge.

The feeble-minded faun (the stone-deaf man) led the way to Mr. Pike's
assistance, followed by Tony, the suicidal Greek. Paddy was next,
and in order came Shorty, Henry the training-ship boy, and Nancy,
last, of course, and looking as if he were going to execution.

The deck-water was no more than knee-deep, though rushing with
torrential force, when Mr. Pike and the six men lifted the section of
bridge and started for'ard with it. They swayed and staggered, but
managed to keep going.