Austin, who became sensible that a little draught was shaking his duck trousers, did as Jefferson suggested, and the big felt hat rolled and flopped in a ludicrous fashion along the deck. Then it seemed to spring forward into the blackness, and groping after it, he found it glued to the iron grid which was screwed to the end of a big pipe. It was with some little difficulty he tore it loose. Then he saw Jefferson swing up one hand.
"Easy, while she's getting her first drink; then, if she's spouting full, you can let her hum," he said, and turned to Austin. "Now, come down with me."
They went down together into the musty hold, and when somebody lowered the big hose after them, Jefferson, standing upon the ladder, seized the rope, and looked up at the Canarios clustering round the hatch above.
"Where's that rake you made?" he said.
It was handed him, and Austin glanced down at the water, which glistened oilily under the light of a suspended lamp. It was thick with floating grease and strewn with fragments of rotten bags.
"Get hold and keep her clear!" said Jefferson, who thrust the rake upon him, and then waited a moment before he lowered the hose, while Austin, glancing round a moment, could see the faces of the men above them. They were intent, and almost as expectant as his comrade's.
Then the big pipe sank with a soft splash, and shook out its loose half-coil, as if alive, while it swelled. It grew hard and rigid, and the dim, oily water swirled and seethed about the end of it. In another moment there was a rush of floating objects towards it from the shadows. Strips of bagging, handspikes, clots of oil, and dunnage wood, came thicker and thicker, and Jefferson raised his voice.
"Let her hum!" he said.
The pipe palpitated as it further straightened itself, and now a hole opened in the oily water, and half-seen things came up with a rush from the depths of the flooded hold. Hundreds of little black kernels whirled and sank in the swing of the eddy, which grew wider as a deep, resonant hum descended from the deck above. It seemed to Austin that everything in the hold was coming to the top, but as he watched the bewildering succession of odds and ends that spun amidst the froth, Jefferson's voice rose harshly.
"It's water she's wanting! Keep her clear!" he said.