The Captain’s face was very white as he stepped on deck and called Mr. Bich and the other officers to his state-room, and whiter still were the faces of Mr. Bich and the officers when they left it. The vessel shook with the vibration of the engines: there was a strange and stormy muttering among the men: the vessel headed for the open sea. George was taken to his cabin and locked in. He lay down on the floor and tried to go to sleep. A roaring and a rumbling and a banging and a thudding made that impossible. The shaking made him feel so sick that he wished to die. Near by he could hear Arabella weeping, and that was more than he could bear. He thrust and bumped against his door and worked himself into a sweat over it, but it seemed that it would not give. As he reached the very pit of despair, the door gave, the floor gave, the walls heaved in upon him; in one roaring convulsion he was flung up and up and up, and presently came down and down and down into the sea. It tasted salt and was cool to his sweating body and he was glad of it.
VII: SIEBENHAAR
He was not glad of it for long, because he soon became very cold and was nipped to numbness. He assumed that it was the end, and felt a remote regret for Arabella. Other thought he had none.
When he came to himself he was, or seemed to be, once more in the room from which he had been so violently propelled, but there were two men standing near him and talking in a strange tongue. Presently there came a third man who spoke to him in Fattish.
“Hullo! Thought you were done in,” said the man.
George stared.
“Done in. Dead.”
“Yes, I was.”
The man laughed.
“Funny fellow you are. Eyes just like a baby.”