There is no lack of things to frighten people withal in this world; but I cannot conceive of any shock comparable to the instant consternation felt by a man who meets another of whose death he is profoundly assured, and whom he has been thinking of as a corpse, dead and buried, for any number of days gone by. The general horror, the prodigious universal amazement which held the mate and me and others amongst us speechless and motionless, as though we had been blasted and withered up by some electric bolt from heaven, scarcely endured a minute; yet by that handful of seconds was the picture of this amazing incident framed. I see Crabb now as he let fall his arm from his face when his fit of choking coughing ceased: and I recall the blind wild look of his distorted eyes, as he slowly turned his countenance round, as though the mild evening light was violently oppressive to his vision after the days of blackness passed in the hold. His repulsive countenance was dark with dirt and grime. I observed many scratches upon his arms, which were naked to the elbows, as though he were fresh from squeezing and boring through some ugly jagged intricacies of stowed commodities. His shirt hung in rags upon him; there were many rents in his loose trousers; and there was blood upon his exposed chest, from a wound seemingly made by the sharp head of a nail or some edge of iron-sheathed case. ‘Seize that man, bo’sun,’ suddenly roared Mr. Prance, leaping out of his benumbed condition of astonishment in a way to make one think of a bull sweeping out through a hedge: ‘handcuff him, and shut him up in your berth for the present. Get the head-pump rigged--the hose passed along. Jump for buckets, and stand by to pass them down.’ The powerful hand of the boatswain closed like a vice upon Crabb’s neck. I thought to see a struggle, but the ugly sailor seemed weak and dazed, and stepped passively to the boatswain’s berth into which my friend shot him, following and closing the door, to conceal, I suppose, the operation of manacling the man from the eyes of the half-stupefied Jacks. Half-stupefied, I say: but the orders of the mate were like the flourish of some magic wand over each man. There was a headlong rush, though with something of discipline in the hurry of it too, at the chief officer’s command. Smoke was draining through the open hatch, floating up thinly and lazily, though it was a thing to make one hold one’s breath, not knowing but that the next vomit might prove a thicker, darker coil, with a lightning-like reddening of the base of it to the flicker of some deep down tongue of flame. Fire at sea! Ah, great God! Out of the mere thought of it will come the spirit of the fleetest runner into the laziest and most lifeless shanks.