Two more started mouthing what seemed to Jukes fierce denunciations; the others stirred with grunts and growls.  Jukes ordered the hands out of the ’tweendecks hurriedly.  He left last himself, backing through the door, while the grunts rose to a loud murmur and hands were extended after him as after a malefactor.  The boatswain shot the bolt, and remarked uneasily, “Seems as if the wind had dropped, sir.”

The seamen were glad to get back into the alleyway.  Secretly each of them thought that at the last moment he could rush out on deck—­and that was a comfort.  There is something horribly repugnant in the idea of being drowned under a deck.  Now they had done with the Chinamen, they again became conscious of the ship’s position.

Jukes on coming out of the alleyway found himself up to the neck in the noisy water.  He gained the bridge, and discovered he could detect obscure shapes as if his sight had become preternaturally acute.  He saw faint outlines.  They recalled not the familiar aspect of the Nan-Shan, but something remembered—­an old dismantled steamer he had seen years ago rotting on a mudbank.  She recalled that wreck.

There was no wind, not a breath, except the faint currents created by the lurches of the ship.  The smoke tossed out of the funnel was settling down upon her deck.  He breathed it as he passed forward.  He felt the deliberate throb of the engines, and heard small sounds that seemed to have survived the great uproar:  the knocking of broken fittings, the rapid tumbling of some piece of wreckage on the bridge.  He perceived dimly the squat shape of his captain holding on to a twisted bridge-rail, motionless and swaying as if rooted to the planks.  The unexpected stillness of the air oppressed Jukes.

“We have done it, sir,” he gasped.

“Thought you would,” said Captain MacWhirr.

“Did you?” murmured Jukes to himself.

“Wind fell all at once,” went on the Captain.

Jukes burst out:  “If you think it was an easy job—­”

But his captain, clinging to the rail, paid no attention.  “According to the books the worst is not over yet.”

“If most of them hadn’t been half dead with seasickness and fright, not one of us would have come out of that ’tween-deck alive,” said Jukes.

“Had to do what’s fair by them,” mumbled MacWhirr, stolidly.  “You don’t find everything in books.”

“Why, I believe they would have risen on us if I hadn’t ordered the hands out of that pretty quick,” continued Jukes with warmth.

After the whisper of their shouts, their ordinary tones, so distinct, rang out very loud to their ears in the amazing stillness of the air.  It seemed to them they were talking in a dark and echoing vault.