"If the old man can't come on deck soon I'll have to cave in," he thought. He shook his fist at the ship. "I wish I'd never seen her. She's a man-killer."
That night when the starboard watch was called at twelve the wind took off suddenly, and the Pandora pounded in the wallow of the sea like a bull-buffalo in a bog. She shipped seas over both rails; the racing waves astern came and slapped their crests at the man at the wheel; she scooped up the sea forward every stagger she made. She had been running under the reefed foresail and the fore and main topsails close reefed. Now they shook the reefs out. Gamgee was alert and alive, but his nerves half-betrayed him. He jumped from the poop to the main-deck, and back again. He wanted to be mate and second mate and skipper too. And as the fresh canvas took hold of her, she slapped at the rising sea, dived into it, and as the wind bellowed almost as keen as ever, the man at the wheel lost his nerve, gave her too much helm, snatched at her, gave her too much again, and almost broached her to. And then the mate was again on the main-deck.
Some one heard him say "O God!" as the Atlantic fell on board; but no one ever heard him say anything again.
The water filled her from rail to rail. She shuddered, and then lifted slowly, and as she ran once more before the wind and rolled, she poured out the sea on either side. The main-deck ports were burst outward, the gear floated in inextricable tangles, a four-hundred-gallon tank, lashed under the poop ladders, broke from its lashings and took charge of the deck. In the black darkness and the imminent danger men cried out. Some cried to their mates and were answered, some were not answered. With the mate three other men had gone.
And then she cleared herself once more, and the men came together under the break of the poop. Joe asked for Jack Marchmont; but Jack had saved any one from the expense of a tombstone.
"And I over-persuaded 'im to ship in her. Oh, she's a bloody ship."
Then one man said:
"Where's Mr. Gamgee?"
Joe ran up to the poop.
"Mr. Gamgee! sir!"