“Jowl went down an’ complained; but it didn’t do no good. They was all so sick they wouldn’t answer. So the second hand ’lowed he’d go down an’ argue, which he foolishly done—an’ never come back. An’ when I went below t’ rout un out of it, he was stowed away in his bunk, all out o’ sorts an’ wonderful melancholy. ‘Isn’t no use, Tumm,’ says he. ‘It isn’t no use.’
“‘Get out o’ this!’ says the cook. ‘You woke me up!’
“I ’lowed the forecastle air wouldn’t be long about persuadin’ me to the first hand’s sinful way o’ thinkin’. An’ when I got on deck the gale tasted sweet.
“‘They isn’t treatin’ us right,’ says Jowl.
“‘I ’low you’re right,’ says I, ‘but what you goin’ t’ do?’
“‘What you think?’ says he.
“‘Pump,’ says I.
“‘Might’s well,’ says he. ‘She’s fillin’ up.’
“We kep’ pumpin’ away, steady enough, till dawn, which fagged us wonderful. The way she rolled an’ pitched, an’ the way the big white, sticky, frosty seas broke over us, an’ the way the wind pelted us with rain an’ hail, an’ the blackness o’ the sky, was mean—just almighty careless an’ mean. An’ pumpin’ didn’t seem t’ do no good; for why? we couldn’t save the hulk—not us two. As it turned out, if the crew had been fitted out with men’s stomachs we might have weathered it out, an’ gone down the Labrador, an’ got a load; for every vessel that got there that season come home fished t’ the gunwales. But we didn’t know it then. Jowl growled all night to hisself about the way we was treated. The wind carried most o’ the blasphemy out t’ sea, where they wasn’t no lad t’ corrupt, an’ at scattered times a big sea would make Jowl splutter, but I heared enough t’ make me smell the devil, an’ when I seed Jowl’s face by the first light I ’lowed his angry feelin’s had riz to a ridiculous extent, so that they was something more’n the weather gone wild in my whereabouts.
“‘What’s gone along o’ you?’ says I.