and then I perceived with annoyance the fool was trying to tilt the
bench. I said curtly, 'Don't, Chips,' and immediately became aware of a
queer sensation, of an absurd delusion,--I seemed somehow to be in
the air. I heard all round me like a pent-up breath released--as if
a thousand giants simultaneously had said Phoo!--and felt a dull
concussion which made my ribs ache suddenly. No doubt about it--I was
in the air, and my body was describing a short parabola. But short as
it was, I had the time to think several thoughts in, as far as I can
remember, the following order: 'This can't be the carpenter--What is
it?--Some accident--Submarine volcano?--Coals, gas!--By Jove! we are
being blown up--Everybody's dead--I am falling into the after-hatch--I
see fire in it.'

"The coal-dust suspended in the air of the hold had glowed dull-red
at the moment of the explosion. In the twinkling of an eye, in an
infinitesimal fraction of a second since the first tilt of the bench, I
was sprawling full length on the cargo. I picked myself up and scrambled
out. It was quick like a rebound. The deck was a wilderness of smashed
timber, lying crosswise like trees in a wood after a hurricane; an
immense curtain of soiled rags waved gently before me--it was the
mainsail blown to strips. I thought, The masts will be toppling over
directly; and to get out of the way bolted on all-fours towards the
poop-ladder. The first person I saw was Mahon, with eyes like saucers,
his mouth open, and the long white hair standing straight on end round
his head like a silver halo. He was just about to go down when the
sight of the main-deck stirring, heaving up, and changing into splinters
before his eyes, petrified him on the top step. I stared at him in
unbelief, and he stared at me with a queer kind of shocked curiosity.
I did not know that I had no hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes, that my
young moustache was burnt off, that my face was black, one cheek laid