At its setting the sun had a diminished diameter and an expiring

brown, rayless glow, as if millions of centuries elapsing since
the morning had brought it near its end. A dense bank of cloud

became visible to the northward; it had a sinister dark olive
tint, and lay low and motionless upon the sea, resembling a solid

obstacle in the path of the ship. She went floundering towards
it like an exhausted creature driven to its death. The coppery

twilight retired slowly, and the darkness brought out overhead a
swarm of unsteady, big stars, that, as if blown upon, flickered

exceedingly and seemed to hang very near the earth. At eight
o'clock Jukes went into the chart-room to write up the ship's

log.
He copies neatly out of the rough-book the number of miles, the

course of the ship, and in the column for "wind" scrawled the
word "calm" from top to bottom of the eight hours since noon. He

was exasperated by the continuous, monotonous rolling of the
ship. The heavy inkstand would slide away in a manner that

suggested perverse intelligence in dodging the pen. Having
written in the large space under the head of "Remarks" "Heat very

oppressive," he stuck the end of the penholder in his teeth, pipe
fashion, and mopped his face carefully.

"Ship rolling heavily in a high cross swell," he began again, and
commented to himself, "Heavily is no word for it." Then he

wrote: "Sunset threatening, with a low bank of clouds to N. and
E. Sky clear overhead."

Sprawling over the table with arrested pen, he glanced out of the
door, and in that frame of his vision he saw all the stars flying

upwards between the teakwood jambs on a black sky. The whole lot
took flight together and disappeared, leaving only a blackness

flecked with white flashes, for the sea was as black as the sky
and speckled with foam afar. The stars that had flown to the

roll came back on the return swing of the ship, rushing downwards
in their glittering multitude, not of fiery points, but enlarged

to tiny discs brilliant with a clear wet sheen.
Jukes watched the flying big stars for a moment, and then wrote:

"8 P.M. Swell increasing. Ship labouring and taking water on
her decks. Battened down the coolies for the night. Barometer

still falling." He paused, and thought to himself, "Perhaps
nothing whatever'll come of it." And then he closed resolutely

his entries: "Every appearance of a typhoon coming on."
On going out he had to stand aside, and Captain MacWhirr strode

over the doorstep without saying a word or making a sign.
"Shut the door, Mr. Jukes, will you?" he cried from within.

Jukes turned back to do so, muttering ironically: "Afraid to
catch cold, I suppose." It was his watch below, but he yearned

for communion with his kind; and he remarked cheerily to the
second mate: "Doesn't look so bad, after all -- does it?"

The second mate was marching to and fro on the bridge, tripping
down with small steps one moment, and the next climbing with

difficulty the shifting slope of the deck. At the sound of
Jukes' voice he stood still, facing forward, but made no reply.

"Hallo! That's a heavy one," said Jukes, swaying to meet the
long roll till his lowered hand touched the planks. This time

the second mate made in his throat a noise of an unfriendly
nature.

He was an oldish, shabby little fellow, with bad teeth and no
hair on his face. He had been shipped in a hurry in Shanghai,

that trip when the second officer brought from home had delayed
the ship three hours in port by contriving (in some manner

Captain MacWhirr could never understand) to fall overboard into
an empty coal-lighter lying alongside, and had to be sent ashore

to the hospital with concussion of the brain and a broken limb or
two.

Jukes was not discouraged by the unsympathetic sound. "The
Chinamen must be having a lovely time of it down there," he said.

"It's lucky for them the old girl has the easiest roll of any
ship I've ever been in. There now! This one wasn't so bad."

"You wait," snarled the second mate.
With his sharp nose, red at the tip, and his thin pinched lips,

he always looked as though he were raging inwardly; and he was
concise in his speech to the point of rudeness. All his time off

duty he spent in his cabin with the door shut, keeping so still
in there that he was supposed to fall asleep as soon as he had

disappeared; but the man who came in to wake him for his watch on
deck would invariably find him with his eyes wide open, flat on

his back in the bunk, and glaring irritably from a soiled pillow.
He never wrote any letters, did not seem to hope for news from

anywhere; and though he had been heard once to mention West
Hartlepool, it was with extremebitterness, and only in

connection with the extortionate charges of a boarding-house. He
was one of those men who are picked up at need in the ports of

the world. They are competent enough, appear hopelessly hard up,
show no evidence of any sort of vice, and carry about them all

the signs of manifestfailure. They come aboard on an emergency,
care for no ship afloat, live in their own sphere" target="_blank" title="n.大气；空气；气氛">atmosphere of casual

connection amongst their shipmates who know nothing of them, and
make up their minds to leave at inconvenient times. They clear

out with no words of leavetaking in some God-forsaken port other
men would fear to be stranded in, and go ashore in company of a

shabby sea-chest, corded like a treasure-box, and with an air of
shaking the ship's dust off their feet.

"You wait," he repeated, balanced in great swings with his back
to Jukes, motionless and implacable.

"Do you mean to say we are going to catch it hot?" asked Jukes
with boyish interest.

"Say? . . . I say nothing. You don't catch me," snapped the
little second mate, with a mixture of pride, scorn, and cunning,

as if Jukes' question had been a trap cleverly detected. "Oh,
no! None of you here shall make a fool of me if I know it," he

mumbled to himself.
Jukes reflected rapidly that this second mate was a mean little

beast, and in his heart he wished poor Jack Allen had never
smashed himself up in the coal-lighter. The far-off blackness

ahead of the ship was like another night seen through the starry
night of the earth -- the starless night of the immensities

beyond the created universe, revealed in its appalling stillness
through a low fissure in the glittering sphere of which the earth

is the kernel.
"Whatever there might be about," said Jukes, "we are steaming

straight into it."
"You've said it," caught up the second mate, always with his back

to Jukes. "You've said it, mind -- not I."
"Oh, go to Jericho!" said Jukes, frankly; and the other emitted a

triumphant little chuckle.
"You've said it," he repeated.

"And what of that?"
"I've known some real good men get into trouble with their

skippers for saying a dam' sight less," answered the second mate
feverishly. "Oh, no! You don't catch me."

"You seem deucedly anxious not to give yourself away," said
Jukes, completely soured by such absurdity. "I wouldn't be afraid

to say what I think."
"Aye, to me! That's no great trick. I am nobody, and well I

know it."
The ship, after a pause of comparative steadiness, started upon a

series of rolls, one worse than the other, and for a time Jukes,
preserving his equilibrium, was too busy to open his mouth. As

soon as the violent swinging had quieted down somewhat, he said:
"This is a bit too much of a good thing. Whether anything is