41 Lure O Gold 1904

thudding hubbub. [115]
The Bulkhead Door
upon the door it
yielded gently, and I passed into the
dark and chilly air of the great empty space between
decks, blank darkness all about me. It seemed to me
that I was now nearer the sea, or at least could more
distinctly note its effect upon the vessel. As the ship
rolled violently to one side,
I heard strange swishing,
crackling and crashing sounds proceeding
after part of the vessel, down below somewhere.
from the
These
sounds were so loud, so strange and so startling as to
make me leap in fright the first time I heard them.
When the ship heaved over on the other side there was
a repetition
of the racket swis-s-s-s-h ! rus-s-s-sh !
with a low roll and hubbub that
crash-s-h !
mingled
frightened me more than ever. In the lulls between
these uproarious and half-deafening noises I heard
certain grating sounds coming from the after part of
the vessel down below.
These gratings were scarcely
audible above the fierce swishes and crashes, but they
finally came to me as the sound of a saw. The order
of these noises came at last to be almost regular in suc
cession: First, there would be the long-drawn swish
and rush, followed by the violent crash, then the thin
grating of the saw,
which would be drowned by the