Chapter 15: XV

XV There was a deal of cursing and groaning as the men at the bottom of the ladder crawled to their feet. “Somebody strike a light, my thumb’s out of joint,” said one of the men, Parsons, a swarthy, saturnine man, boat steerer in Standish’s boat, in which Harrison was puller. “You’ll find it knockin’ about by the bitts,” Leach said, sitting down on the edge of the bunk in which I was concealed. There was a fumbling and a scratching of matches, and the sea lamp flared up, dim and smok…