was the use o’ frightenin’ folks? But where’s the sense in keepin’ it back now? We have a bit of a cargo,” shouted Harris; “and it’s gunpowder - every damned ton of it!”
The effect of this announcement may be imagined; my hand has not the cunning to reproduce it on paper; and if it had, it would shrink from the task. Mild men became brutes, brutal men, devils, women - God help them! - shrieking beldams for the most part. Never shall I forget them with their streaming hair, their screaming open
my candle, and blowing out the match with a care that seemed in itself a contradiction.
“I wish I were,” he answered. “Listen to that!”
He pointed to my cabin ceiling; it quivered and creaked; and all at once I was as a deaf man healed.
One gets inured to noise at sea, but to this day it passes me