Decoud listened. The gulf was dumb. He felt the water nearly up to his knees. “Are we sinking?” he asked in a faint breath.
“I don’t know,” Nostromo breathed back to him. “Senor, make not the slightest sound.”
Hirsch, when ordered forward by Nostromo, had not returned into his first hiding-place. He had fallen near the mast, and had no strength to rise; moreover, he feared to move. He had given himself up for dead, but not on any rational grounds. It was simply a cruel and terrifying feeling. Whenever he tried to think what would become of him his teeth would start chattering violently. He was too absorbed in the utter misery of his fear to take notice of anything.
Though he was stifling under the lighter’s sail which Nostromo had unwittingly lowered on top of him, he did not even dare
