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the rows of prone bodies; a few dim flames in globe-lamps were hung
short here and there under the ridge-poles, and in the blurred circles
of light thrown down and trembling slightly to the unceasing vibration
of the ship appeared a chin upturned, two closed eyelids, a dark hand
with silver rings, a meagre limb draped in a torn covering, a head bent
back, a naked foot, a throat bared and stretched as if offering itself
to the knife. The well-to-do had made for their families shelters with
heavy boxes and dusty mats; the poor reposed side by side with all they
had on earth tied up in a rag under their heads; the lone old men slept,
with drawn-up legs, upon their prayer-carpets, with their hands over
their ears and one elbow on each side of the face; a father, his
shoulders up and his knees under his forehead, dozed dejectedly by a
boy who slept on his back with tousled hair and one arm commandingly
extended; a woman covered from head to foot, like a corpse, with a piece
of white sheeting, had a naked child in the hollow of each arm; the
Arab's belongings, piled right aft, made a heavy mound of broken
outlines, with a cargo-lamp swung above, and a great confusion of
vague forms behind: gleams of paunchy brass pots, the foot-rest of a
deck-chair, blades of spears, the straight scabbard of an old sword
leaning against a heap of pillows, the spout of a tin coffee-pot. The
patent log on the taffrail periodically rang a single tinkling stroke
for every mile traversed on an errand of faith. Above the mass of
sleepers a faint and patient sigh at times floated, the exhalation of a
troubled dream; and short metallic clangs bursting out suddenly in the
depths of the ship, the harsh scrape of a shovel, the violent slam of a
furnace-door, exploded brutally, as if the men handling the mysterious
things below had their breasts full of fierce anger: while the slim high
hull of the steamer went on evenly ahead, without a sway of her bare
masts, cleaving continuously the great calm of the waters under the
inaccessible serenity of the sky.
Jim paced athwart, and his footsteps in the vast silence were loud to
his own ears, as if echoed by the watchful stars: his eyes, roaming
about the line of the horizon, seemed to gaze hungrily into the
unattainable, and did not see the shadow of the coming event. The only
shadow on the sea was the shadow of the black smoke pouring heavily from
the funnel its immense streamer, whose end was constantly dissolving in
the air. Two Malays, silent and almost motionless, steered, one on each
side of the wheel, whose brass rim shone fragmentarily in the oval
of light thrown out by the binnacle. Now and then a hand, with black
fingers alternately letting go and catching hold of revolving spokes,
appeared in the illumined part; the links of wheel-chains ground heavily
in the grooves of the barrel. Jim would glance at the compass, would
glance around the unattainable horizon, would stretch himself till his
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