The words dying faintly on their lips, ended in light sighs.
A sudden voice cried into the cold night, "O Lord!" No one changed
his position or took any notice of the cry. One or two passed, with a
repeated and vague gesture, their hand over their faces, but most of
them kept very still. In the benumbed immobility of their bodies they
were excessively wearied by their thoughts, which rushed with the
rapidity and vividness of dreams. Now and then, by an abrupt and
startling exclamation, they answered the weird hail of some illusion;
then, again, in silence contemplated the vision of known faces and
familiar things. They recalled the aspect of forgotten shipmates and
heard the voice of dead and gone skippers. They remembered the noise of
gaslit streets, the steamy heat of tap-rooms or the scorching sunshine
of calm days at sea.
Mr. Baker left his insecure place, and crawled, with stoppages, along
the poop. In the dark and on all fours he resembled some carnivorous
animal prowling amongst corpses. At the break, propped to windward of
a stanchion, he looked down on the main deck. It seemed to him that
the ship had a tendency to stand up a little more.
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