He clutched the handle
cautiously, but at that moment he received the irresistible impression
of something happening behind his back. He spun round as though he had
been tapped on the shoulder. He was just in time to see Wait's eyes
blaze up and go out at once, like two lamps overturned together by a
sweeping blow. Something resembling a scarlet thread hung down his chin
out of the corner of his lips--and he had ceased to breathe.
Donkin closed the door behind him gently but firmly. Sleeping men,
huddled under jackets, made on the lighted deck shapeless dark mounds
that had the appearance of neglected graves. Nothing had been done all
through the night and he hadn't been missed. He stood motionless and
perfectly astounded to find the world outside as he had left it; there
was the sea, the ship--sleeping men; and he wondered absurdly at it, as
though he had expected to find the men dead, familiar things gone for
ever: as though, like a wanderer returning after many years, he had
expected to see bewildering changes. He shuddered a little in the
penetrating freshness of the air, and hugged himself forlornly. The
declining moon drooped sadly in the western board as if withered by
the cold touch of a pale dawn.
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