"Conrad, Josph - Youth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Conrad Joseph)

slender threads, in an invisible film, in an incomprehen-
sible manner. It made its way into the cabin, into the
forecastle; it poisoned the sheltered places on the deck,
it could be sniffed as high as the mainyard. It was
clear that if the smoke came out the air came in. This
was disheartening. This combustion refused to be stifled.

"We resolved to try water, and took the hatches off.
Enormous volumes of smoke, whitish, yellowish, thick,
greasy, misty, choking, ascended as high as the trucks.
All hands cleared out aft. Then the poisonous cloud
blew away, and we went back to work in a smoke that
was no thicker now than that of an ordinary factory
chimney.

"We rigged the force pump, got the hose along, and
by-and-by it burst. Well, it was as old as the ship--a
prehistoric hose, and past repair. Then we pumped with
the feeble head-pump, drew water with buckets, and in
this way managed in time to pour lots of Indian Ocean
into the main hatch. The bright stream flashed in sun-
shine, fell into a layer of white crawling smoke, and van-
ished on the black surface of coal. Steam ascended
mingling with the smoke. We poured salt water as into
a barrel without a bottom. It was our fate to pump in
that ship, to pump out of her, to pump into her; and
after keeping water out of her to save ourselves from
being drowned, we frantically poured water into her to
save ourselves from being burnt.

"And she crawled on, do or die, in the serene weather.
The sky was a miracle of purity, a miracle of azure.
The sea was polished, was blue, was pellucid, was spark-
ling like a precious stone, extending on all sides, all
round to the horizon--as if the whole terrestrial globe
had been one jewel, one colossal sapphire, a single gem
fashioned into a planet. And on the luster of the great
calm waters the Judea glided imperceptibly, enveloped
in languid and unclean vapors, in a lazy cloud that
drifted to leeward, light and slow: a pestiferous cloud
defiling the splendor of sea and sky.

"All this time of course we saw no fire. The cargo
smoldered at the bottom somewhere. Once Mahon, as
we were working side by side, said to me with a queer
smile: 'Now, if she only would spring a tidy leak--
like that time when we first left the Channel--it would
put a stopper on this fire. Wouldn't it?' I remarked
irrelevantly, 'Do you remember the rats?'