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bunch…. Enough to make you die laughing,’ he commented with downcast eyes; then raising them for a moment to my face with a dismal smile, ‘I ought to have a merry life of it, by God! for I shall see that funny sight a good many times yet before I die.’ His eyes fell again. ‘See and hear…. See and hear,’ he repeated twice, at long intervals, filled by vacant staring.
    â€œHe roused himself.
    â€œâ€˜I made up my mind to keep my eyes shut,’ he said, ‘and I couldn't. I couldn't, and I don't care who knows it. Let them go through that kind of thing before they talk. Just let them—and do better—that's all. The second time my eyelids flew open and my mouth too. I had felt the ship move. She just dipped her bows—and lifted them gently—and slow! everlastingly slow; and ever so little. She hadn't done that much for days. The cloud had raced ahead, and this first swell seemed to travel upon a sea of lead. There was no life in that stir. It managed, though, to knock over something in my head. What would you have done? You are sure of yourself—aren't you? What would you do if you felt now—this minute—the house here move, just move a little under your chair. Leap! By heavens! you would take one spring from where you sit and land in that clump of bushes yonder.’
    â€œHe flung his arm out at the night beyond the stone balustrade. I held my peace. He looked at me very steadily, very severe. There could be no mistake: I was being bullied now, and it behoved me to make no sign lest by a gesture or a word I should be drawn into a fatal admission about myself which would have had some bearing on the case. I was not disposed to take any risk of that sort. Don't forget I had him before me, and really he was too much like one of us not to be dangerous. But if you want to know I don't mind telling you that I did, with a rapid glance, estimate the distance to the mass of denser blackness in the middle of the grass plot before the verandah. He exaggerated. I would have landed short by several feet—and that's the only thing of which I am fairly certain.
    â€œThe last moment had come, as he thought, and he did not move. His feet remained glued to the planks if his thoughtswere knocking about loose in his head. It was at this moment too that he saw one of the men around the boat step backwards suddenly, clutch at the air with raised arms, totter and collapse. He didn't exactly fall, he only slid gently into a sitting posture, all hunched up, and with his shoulders propped against the side of the engine-room skylight. ‘That was the donkey-man. A haggard, white-faced chap with a ragged moustache. Acted third engineer,’ he explained.
    â€œâ€˜Dead,’ I said. We had heard something of that in court.
    â€œâ€˜So they say,’ he pronounced with sombre indifference. ‘Of course I never knew. Weak heart. The man had been complaining of being out of sorts for some time before. Excitement. Over-exertion. Devil only knows. Ha! ha! ha! It was easy to see he did not want to die either. Droll, isn't it? May I be shot if he hadn't been fooled into killing himself! Fooled—neither more nor less. Fooled into it, by heavens! just as I… Ah! If he had only kept still; if he had only told them to go to the devil when they came to rush him out of his bunk because the ship was sinking! If he had only stood by with his hands in his pockets and called them names!’
    â€œHe got up, shook his fist, glared at me, and sat down.
    â€œâ€˜A chance missed, eh?’ I murmured.
    â€œâ€˜Why don't you laugh?’ he said. ‘A joke hatched in hell. Weak heart!… I wish sometimes mine had been.’
    â€œThis irritated me. ‘Do you?’ I exclaimed with deep-rooted irony. ‘Yes! Can't you understand?’ he cried. ‘I don't know what more you could wish for,’ I said angrily. He gave me an utterly