An inexplicable premonition had come over him, which he refused to admit even to himself, that all was not well. He listened: the ship still held on her course. There was no sound but the restless chirp of a block somewhere aloft, the creak of a yard moving against the parrals, the constant “hush-hush” of the waves as they hastened under the keel. He slipped into his coat and passed out into the saloon.
The lamp over the table was still burning smokily, mingling its light with the cold grey light of morning, and giving to the scene that air of desolation which perhaps nothing else can impart so completely. The place reeked of drink. Under the lamp, sprawling half across the table, was Rumbold. One whisky bottle lay on the floor, another on the table beside his hand, from which the last dregs spattered lazily to the floor.
The swine—the drunken swine! Anderton seized him by the arm and shook him furiously.
Rumbold lifted his ravaged face from the table and stared at him stupidly.
“Thish bockle’sh—water o’ knowledge—good’n’ evil,” he said inanely. “Mush make—inquirations—morramornin’!”
His head dropped on his arms again.
Anderton took the companion in a couple of bounds.
It was like stepping out into wet cotton-wool. The stars were gone. The sky was gone, but for one pale high blue patch right overhead. The ship disappeared into the fog forward of the after hatch as completely as if she had been cut in two. There wasn’t a soul to be seen but the man at the wheel, a stolid young Finn who would go on steering the course that had been given him until the skies fell.
Anderton started to run forward, shouting as he went; and his voice, tossed back at him out of the dimness, hit him in the face like a stone.
The next moment, the ship had struck.