Jimmy had been shouting: "Go on, Charlie!" For a moment he was like a sailing ship taken aback, but he plucked up courage, and accepting the instrument that Charles handed to him, wiped it with his sleeve and began to play. Some rose and tried to dance, but did not find dancing easy, for the gale was rising, and the stern rose and swung and fell and leapt up. They danced, collided, and fell, danced again, and the onlookers whooped with amusement, or smiled with mild disdain and pity; and the mouth organ warbled, while the sea echoed and whispered round. Candlass, appearing unexpectedly with a lamp, brought the man with the mouth organ to a stop, and the dancers reeled to their bunks, where they sat down laughing.
"Mike!" said Candlass. "Oh, you're there, Mike. Bring two or three of the men forward with you."
Mike slipped over his bunk side; three or four others rolled out of their own accord, the Inquisitive One among them, for though it must be a call to work of some kind, and he was not eager for extra work, he simply must know what was afoot.
"That will do," said Candlass. "I just want you to come along here and see to some of these ropes before you turn in."
Away they went along the reeking decks. The cattle were not in a bad plight at all; they had their four legs to stand upon, and propped each other as well. It was those upon the lee side that gave most concern to Candlass now. He carried the lamp high, casting weird shadows, and directing the men in the slacking of a rope here, the hauling up of one yonder. There was no doubt that the gale was rising; sailors were battening down a hatch overhead, and their voices, as they hailed each other before they got the whole hatch covered, shutting out the night, came down broken and blown. Seas came over the decks, smacking like the flat of a great hand, and rushed past. Now that the hatches were battened down there was a kind of confined feeling—the long deck above, and the steer-packed deck below, converged in the perspective, and gave a feeling as of being buried alive in a monstrous box full of a dance of weird lights and shadows.
Their work over, Candlass said: "That'll do, men. I'd better have a man or two up to-night, along with the watchman."
"All right," answered Mike, looking forward to the variety.
"No, no—not you," said Candlass. "You fellows can go back."
Away they went along the choking decks, one or another pausing now and then to scratch, with closed fists—fingers being useless to the big beasts—some head that thrust forward inviting. Others, when a head leant out determinedly, smote at it to make way—but most, by this time, had desisted from such methods, and were more inclined to make friends with the steers. They met Rafferty as they were on their way back.
"Where's Candlass?" he asked them.