"Hold on, you fellows!" I sung out. "Shut up a minute."
"Mr. Tulipson!" I called out to the Second, who had not been able to get a word in edgeways, "I don't know what the devil's the matter with the First Mate; but he'll not find it pay to talk to a crowd like ours, in that sort of fashion, or there'll be ructions aboard."
"Come! come! Jessop! This won't do! I can't have you talking like that about the Mate!" he said, sharply. "Let me know what's to-do, and then go forrard again, the lot of you."
"We'd have told you at first, Sir," I said, "only the Mate wouldn't give any of us a chance to speak. There's been an awful accident, Sir. Something's fallen from aloft, right on to Jock—"
I stopped suddenly; for there was a loud crying aloft.
"Help! help! help!" someone was shouting, and then it rose from a shout into a scream.
"My God! Sir!" I shouted. "That's one of the men up at the fore royal!"
"Listen!" ordered the Second Mate. "Listen!" Even as he spoke, it came again—broken and, as it were, in gasps.
"Help!… Oh!… God!… Oh!… Help! H-e-l-p!"
Abruptly, Stubbins's voice struck in.