We were not fifty yards apart when the passengers on the stranger caught sight of us and shrieked aloud. I saw a man pick up his child from one of the benches and futilely attempt to climb the rigging. Then we closed—her name-plate ten feet above ours, looking down into our forehatch. I heard the grinding as of a hundred querns, the ripping of the tough bow-plates, and the pistol-like report of displaced rivets followed by the rush of the sea. We were sinking in mid-ocean.
"Beg y' pardon," said the quartermaster, shaking me by the arm, "but you must have been sleeping in the moonlight for the last two hours, and that's not good for the eyes. Didn't seem to make you sleep easy, either." I opened my eyes heavily. My face was swollen and aching, for on my forehead lay the malignant splendour of the moon. The glare of the Red Lamp had vanished with the brilliantly-lighted ship, but the ghastly shrieks of her drowning crew continued.
"What's that?" I asked tremulously of the quartermaster. "Was it real?"
"Pork chops in the saloon to-morrow," said the quartermaster. "The butcher he got up at four bells to put the old squeaker out of the way. Them's his dying ejaculations."
I dragged my bedding aft and went to sleep.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] "Turnovers," Vol. VII.