Complete Works

fast. A place without any water! No water! A policeman with the face of Donkin drank a glass of beer by the side of an empty well, and flew away flapping vigorously. A ship whose mastheads protruded through the sky and could not be seen, was discharging grain, and the wind whirled the dry husks in spirals along the quay of a dock with no water in it. He whirled along with the husks — very tired and light. All his inside was gone. He felt lighter than the husks — and more dry. He expanded his hollow chest. The air streamed in, carrying away in its rush a lot of strange things that resembled houses, trees, people, lamp-posts.... No more! There was no more air — and he had not finished drawing his long breath. But he was in jail! They were locking him up. A door slammed. They turned the key twice, flung a bucket of water over him — Phoo! What for?
    He opened his eyes, thinking the fall had been very heavy for an empty man — empty — empty. He was in his cabin. Ah! All right! His face was streaming with perspiration, his arms heavier than lead. He saw the cook standing in the doorway, a brass key in one hand and a bright tin hook-pot in the other.
    “I have locked up the galley for the night,” said the cook, beaming benevolently. “Eight bells just gone. I brought you a pot of cold tea for your night’s drinking, Jimmy. I sweetened it with some white cabin sugar, too. Well — it won’t break the ship.”
    He came in, hung the pot on the edge of the bunk, asked perfunctorily, “How goes it?” and sat down on the box. — ”H’m,” grunted Wait, inhospitably. The cook wiped his face with a dirty cotton rag, which, afterwards, he tied round his neck. — ”That’s how them firemen do in steamboats,” he said, serenely, and much pleased with himself. “My work is as heavy as theirs — I’m thinking — and longer hours. Did you ever see them down the stokehold? Like fiends they look — firing — firing — firing — down there.”
    He pointed his forefinger at the deck. Some gloomy thought darkened his shining face, fleeting, like the shadow of a travelling cloud over the light of a peaceful sea. The relieved watch tramped noisily forward, passing in a body across the sheen of the doorway. Some one cried, “Good-night!” Belfast stopped for a moment and looked at Jimmy, quivering and speechless with repressed emotion. He gave the cook a glance charged with dismal foreboding, and vanished. The cook cleared his throat. Jimmy stared upwards and kept as still as a man in hiding.
    The night was clear, with a gentle breeze. Above the mastheads the resplendent curve of the Milky Way spanned the sky like a triumphal arch of eternal light, thrown over the dark pathway of the earth. On the forecastle head a man whistled with loud precision a lively jig, while another could be heard faintly, shuffling and stamping in time. There came from forward a confused murmur of voices, laughter — snatches of song. The cook shook his head, glanced obliquely at Jimmy, and began to mutter. “Aye. Dance and sing. That’s all they think of. I am surprised that Providence don’t get tired.... They forget the day that’s sure to come... but you....”
    Jimmy drank a gulp of tea, hurriedly, as though he had stolen it, and shrank under his blanket, edging away towards the bulkhead. The cook got up, closed the door, then sat down again and said distinctly: —
    “Whenever I poke my galley fire I think of you chaps — swearing, stealing, lying, and worse — as if there was no such thing as another world.... Not bad fellows, either, in a way,” he conceded, slowly; then, after a pause of regretful musing, he went on in a resigned tone: — ”Well, well. They will have a hot time of it. Hot! Did I say? The furnaces of one of them White Star boats ain’t nothing to it.”
    He kept very quiet for a while. There was a great stir in his brain; an addled vision of bright outlines; an exciting row of rousing songs and groans of pain. He suffered, enjoyed, admired, approved. He was delighted, frightened, exalted — as on that evening (the only time in his life — twenty-seven years ago; he loved to recall the number of years) when as a young man he had — through keeping bad company — become intoxicated in an East-end music-hall. A tide of sudden feeling swept him clean out of his body. He soared. He contemplated the secret of the hereafter. It commended itself to him. It was excellent; he loved it, himself, all