We saw heaps of porpoises and heaps of flying-fish; some birds; unhewn timber—a nasty lot of it—and big floats of sea-weed. We saw a whale being pounded to death by a killer; and in the afternoon as perfect an example of a brand-new coral island as was ever seen. It looked like a ring of white snow floating on the water, and inside the ring was a careened two-master—just the ribs and stumps left. There was a water-spout miles off to port, and there was a kind of electric jump and thrill to the baked air that made these things seem important, like omens in ancient times. Besides, the beasts, from Bahut the elephant to little Assam the mongoose, put in the whole day at practising the noises of complaint and uneasiness. Then, directly it was dark, we slipped into a "white sea." That's a rare sight and it has never been very well explained. The water looks as though it had been mixed with a quantity of milk, but when you dip it up it's just water.
About midnight we ran out of this and Ivy and I turned in. The sky was clear as a bell and even the beasts were quiet. I hadn't been asleep ten minutes and Ivy not at all, when all at once hell broke loose. There was a bump that nearly drove my head through a bulkhead; though only half awake I could feel to the cold marrow of my bones that the old Boldero was down by the head. The beasts knew it and the Chinks. Never since Babel was there such pandemonium on earth or sea. By a struck match I saw Ivy running out of the cabin and slipping on her bath-wrapper as she went. I called to her, but she didn't answer. I didn't want to think of anything but Ivy, but I had to let her go and think of the ship.
There wasn't much use in thinking. The old Boldero was settling by the head and the pumps couldn't hold up the inflood. In fifteen minutes I knew that it was all up with us—or all down, rather—and I ordered the boats over and began to run about like a maniac, looking for Ivy and calling to her. And why do you suppose I couldn't find her? She was hiding—hiding from me!
She'd heard of captains of sinking ships sending off their wives and children and sweethearts and staying behind to drown out of a mistaken notion of duty. She'd got it into her head that I was that kind of captain and she'd hid so that she couldn't be sent away; but it was all my fault really. If I'd hurried her on deck the minute I did find her we'd have been in time to leave with the boats. But I stopped for explanations and to give her a bit of a lecture; so when we got on deck there were the boats swarming with Chinks slipping off to windward—and there at our feet was Yir Massir, lying in his own blood and brains, a wicked, long knife in his hand and the thread outpiece of a Chink's pigtail between his teeth.
I like to think that he'd tried to make them wait for us, but I don't know. Anyhow, there we were, alone on a sinking deck and all through with earthly affairs as I reckoned it. But Ivy reckoned differently.
"Why are they rowing in that direction?" she says. "They won't get anywhere."
"Why not?" says I.
She jerked her thumb to leeward.
"Don't you feel that it's over there?—the land?" she says. "Just over there."
"Why, no, bless you!" says I. "I don't have any feeling about it.... Now then, we've got to hustle around and find something that will float us. We want to get out of this before the old Boldero goes and sucks us down after."