"Just as well they should think we get it over the gunwale," the second officer said to Newcomb. "Some of the damned rivets must have got strained."
The passengers began to crowd up, half toward the bow, half at the stern. Amidships was awash.
The hail turned to sleet, and the sleet to fine rain. In the stark misery of it the longing grew almost irresistible to jump overboard and end it all. More than one of that tragic company thought again and again: "I've come to the end. I can bear no more," not knowing yet the awful power of the flesh to endure and keep the soul imprisoned.
But the chance-made captain knew. "A hand here!" he ordered, and Newcomb helped the engineer to spread the boat-cover over the people, and to do it in spite of the icy wind that tore the freezing canvas out of one's grasp and seemed along with it to tear out one's finger-nails; failing that, to wrench one's half-frozen fingers out of their sockets. Yet at last the thing was spread and fastened. There was no one who didn't welcome it, and none to whom, as shelter, it wasn't a mock. Some craned out and held the canvas so as to catch the rain. There was enough to sting, enough to chill the marrow, but not enough to drink; yet furred and feverish tongues were pressed against the moistened canvas.
Toward evening the appeals for water became demands. One of the women, a thin, febrile creature with insane eyes, grew violent. For more than one the early stages of hushed despair had passed. Few were able to sit still. They came out from under cover with faces that made the heart shrink. They climbed about the boat in the failing light, moaning, threatening. Among the worst was the cabin-boy. It was clear he was light-headed.
"You've been drinking sea-water," the captain arraigned him, fiercely.
The boy denied the charge, whimpering.
"I think, sir," the engineer interrupted, "the sea-anchor's gone." The captain lashed two oars together and made another. In the early darkness the wind freshened, drenching the boat with spray.
Greta had joined in the bailing. She came up out of the stern like some hibernating brown animal of the bursa family. She worked well.
They bailed in shifts, hour by hour. The men bailed all night long. They bailed till the buckets and pannikins fell out of their swollen hands. In the small hours of morning Nan Ellis had crawled to the seat by Grant.