Soon we had the water from below pouring on to the deck and running into the scuppers and mingling with that that came on board of us over the rail. But the wind increased in strength until it seemed that it would take the aged masts out of the brig, and it actually threatened to blow the clothes from off our backs.
Chips had gone below again to sound the well, and I was holding on to a belaying-pin, and trying not to show how weak and sick I was. I noticed that one of the men, a narrow-headed fellow with an ugly gash of a mouth, was not putting all of the beef he might into his stroke on the pump handles. So I slid over to him and laid hold myself; but the man endeavored to push me to one side.
"Hands off, Captain Jonah," he said, "it might stop working! We had plenty of good luck until you came aboard of us. Hands off, I say!" he cried, "or we'll feed you to the whales."
I could have struck the man for his insolence, as his words had been heard by two of the men opposite; but I saw that the result might be bad for me, so I replied nothing, but taking a firmer hold of the beam, I wedged him out of his position, ready at any moment to fell him if he attempted violence. I was the stronger, and at last I broke his hold. Where the force I now felt command of came from I cannot tell. The man would have slid over against the bulwarks if I had not caught him by the shoulder.
"Go over on the other side and work, you shirker," I cried, and, to my surprise, my voice roared out the words in tones like those of a bull.
I gave the man a push up the slope of the deck, and began heaving up and down with all my might and main, but I had made a discovery.
It was only my lower tones, my demi-voix, that were gone. For three days afterwards this phenomenon continued. If I wished to talk, I had to use the full lung-power that I possessed, and the result was a sound that would do credit to a boatswain's mate in a typhoon. It was as unlike my former voice as a broadside to a pistol-shot. But I am wandering.
The effect of my treatment of the insolent sailor had been marvellous. Not a disrespectful glance was cast at me thereafter. Soon the carpenter came up from below.
"We may have gained some three or four inches, Captain, but no more," he panted, laying hold alongside of me. "I think the water is getting in forward too, sir," he added.
"Get out four of the prisoners and man the forecastle pump," I roared at him.