CHAPTER 8Deep in that pit of darkness presently voices were shouting; it seemed that many hands were tapping at a door. Culver wakened and thought he was in hell.
He was in a room with curving walls and a huge iron windlass in the middle, sweating with damp. He saw this through a fog and reek of tobacco smoke. He saw it through a mist, as it were, of many odors—the smell of wet rust, and sweat, and dunnage, and tar, and the sea. He knew that he was in the forecastle of a ship. The tapping was the constant pound of the waves under the prow, now one by one, now in hurried rushings.
Through this mist of smoke and stench, he saw men drunkenly swaying, shouting, singing, talking. It roared into his ears in a tumultuous babble.
“ ‘A hare, a parson, or a captain’s wife—’ ” someone was singing.
