And then the Jade slid off the reef with a rip more tragic than the strike.
5
Hissing and sucking began below, and the drawing of the centre of the earth. Bellair felt this in his limbs, and the limp paralysis of the sails. It was like the blind struggle in the soul of a bird, this strain in the entity of the old Jade to retain her balance between earth and sky.... Bellair was on his knees dragging forth his unused case. The roll of New York papers came with it, and he stuffed them in overcoat pockets with a six-shooter, a bottle of whiskey and a few smaller things. These arrangements were made altogether without thought. Unfumblingly, he obeyed a rush of absurdities that seemed obvious and reasonable as in a dream.
The touch of water on his knee as he arose was like a burn. It poured in under the door, its stream the size of a pencil, a swift and quiet little emissary. It occurred—a queer, rational touch—that the Jade could not be thus filled so soon, that something must have overturned. He opened the door to the deck. Night and ocean were all one; the rest was the stars, and this bit of chaos recoiling from its death—a little ship, struck from the deep and perceiving her death like a rat that has been struck by a rattler. He smelled the sea, as one in a night-walk smells the earth when passing a ravine.
He moved aft toward the voices, without yet having thought of his own death. He passed a leaking water-cask, and this reminded him of his thirst. He took a deep drink—all he could—and his thoughts came up to the moment. At the same time, that which had been a mass of inarticulate sounds cleared into a more or less coherent intensity of action.
He heard that the Jade was sinking, but knew that already; heard that she would be under in five minutes, which was news of the first order of sensation.... Now he heard Stackhouse again; the rich unctuous voice gone, a sharp, dry peaking instead.... They were aft at the binnacle—Stackhouse, Fleury, the Faraway Woman, McArliss. The Japanese woman was hurrying forward with a pitcher of wine. Stackhouse drank from the pitcher, standing, and with greed that flooded his chest. He spoke and the Japanese woman vanished.
Bellair saw the face of McArliss in the white ray from the binnacle. He had scarcely seen the Captain for a week. Last seen, it was a face swollen and flaming red. It was yellow now, like the skin of a chicken, and feathered with patches of white beard. The loose eye-lids were touched with blue. He fumbled with a cigarette, and called hysterically to an officer amidships. He was not broken from the tragedy, but from the debauch.
Stackhouse was standing by the small boat when two sailors came to launch it. He rocked from one foot to another and peaked to them incessantly. Fleury and the woman stepped nearer the boat. They moved together as one person.... Bellair saw Stackhouse raise his hands as he had done that first Sunday, pushing Brooklyn from him. His body pressed against the gunwale of the small boat; he caught it in his hands, as it raised clear, his ridiculous ankles alternately lifting.
His Chinese cook rushed forward with cans of crackers, and dumped them in the boat. The Japanese woman appeared dragging a huge hamper of wines and liquors. Stackhouse took the hamper between his legs and sent her back to his cabin. The boat was lowered just below the level of the Jade’s gunwale. Stackhouse sprawled forward, the hairy masses of his legs writhing after. Presently he reversed, and began to reach for the hamper. Fleury kicked it out of reach, and lifted the woman and child in.
“Get water,” he said to Bellair. “I’ll save a place for you.”