We pumped all the four hours.
We pumped all night, all day, all the week,--watch and watch. She was
working herself loose, and leaked badly--not enough to drown us at once,
but enough to kill us with the work at the pumps. And while we pumped
the ship was going from us piecemeal: the bulwarks went, the stanchions
were torn out, the ventilators smashed, the cabin-door burst in. There
was not a dry spot in the ship. She was being gutted bit by bit. The
long-boat changed, as if by magic, into matchwood where she stood in her
gripes. I had lashed her myself, and was rather proud of my handiwork,
which had withstood so long the malice of the sea. And we pumped. And
there was no break in the weather. The sea was white like a sheet of
foam, like a caldron of boiling milk; there was not a break in the
clouds, no--not the size of a man's hand--no, not for so much as ten
seconds. There was for us no sky, there were for us no stars, no sun,
no universe--nothing but angry clouds and an infuriated sea. We pumped
watch and watch, for dear life; and it seemed to last for months, for
years, for all eternity, as though we had been dead and gone to a hell
for sailors. We forgot the day of the week, the name of the month, what
year it was, and whether we had ever been ashore. The sails blew away,
she lay broadside on under a weather-cloth, the ocean poured over
her, and we did not care. We turned those handles, and had the eyes of
idiots.
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