Still I am sure I tasted some before I fell into a state of semi-
insensibility. As in a trance I heard Temple's moans, and the captain's
voice across the gusty wind, and the forlorn crunching of the ship down
great waves. The captain's figure was sometimes stooping over us, more
great-coats were piled on us; sometimes the wind whistled thinner than
one fancies the shrieks of creatures dead of starvation and restless,
that spend their souls in a shriek as long as they can hold it on, say
nursery-maids; the ship made a truce with the waters and grunted; we took
two or three playful blows, we were drenched with spray, uphill we
laboured, we caught the moon in a net of rigging, away we plunged; we
mounted to plunge again and again. I reproached the vessel in argument
for some imaginary inconsistency. Memory was like a heavy barrel on my
breast, rolling with the sea.




CHAPTER XIII

WE CONDUCT SEVERAL LEARNED ARGUMENTS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE PRISCILLA

Captain Welsh soon conquered us. The latest meal we had eaten was on the
frosty common under the fir-trees. After a tremendous fast, with sea-
sickness supervening, the eggs and bacon, and pleasant benevolent-
smelling tea on the captain's table were things not to be resisted by two
healthy boys who had previously stripped and faced buckets of maddening
ice-cold salt-water, dashed at us by a jolly sailor. An open mind for
new impressions came with the warmth of our clothes. We ate, bearing
within us the souls of injured innocents; nevertheless, we were thankful,
and, to the captain's grace, a long one, we bowed heads decently. It was