Page:Hopkinson Smith--armchair at the inn.djvu/194

 moved an inch nearer, to kick him square in the face. But at that instant a sea broke over the starboard bow, wrenching the ship fore and aft and jerking the yards as if they had been so many tent-poles. Then came a horrible shriek, and looking down I saw the Portuguese clutching wildly at the ratlines, clear the ship’s side, and strike the water head-foremost. ‘Man overboard!’ I yelled at the top of my lungs, slid to the deck, and ran into the arms of the first mate, who had been watching us and who had seen the whole thing.

“Some of the crew made a spring for the davits, I among them. But the mate shook his head.

“‘Ain’t no use lowerin’,’ he said. ‘Besides, he ain’t worth savin’.’

“That night I had to crawl over the dead man’s empty berth; his pillow and quilt were just as he had left them, all tumbled and mussed, and his tin tobacco-box where he had laid it. Try as I would as I lay awake in my warm bunk and thought of him out in the sea, and my own close shave for life, I could not get rid of a certain uncanny feeling—something akin to the sensation as that of which Lemois was speaking. Only an instant’s time had saved