But Vandover himself suffered too keenly to take much thought for the sufferings of the others, while besides that anguish which he shared with the whole boat, the pain in his broken thumb gnawed incessantly like a rat.  From time to time he stared listlessly about him, looking at the dark sky, the tumbling ocean, and the crowded groups in the plunging, rolling lifeboat.

There was nothing picturesque about it all, nothing heroic.  It was unlike any pictures he had seen of lifeboat rescues, unlike anything he had ever imagined.  It was all sordid, miserable, and the sight of the half-clad women, dirty, sodden, unkempt, stirred him rather to disgust than to pity.

At last the dawn came and grew white over a world of tumbling green billows and scudding wrack.  Some three miles distant, seen only when the boat topped a higher wave, the same procession of bleached hills moved gradually to the south under the fog, their feet covered by the white line of the surf.  Not far behind in the wake of the boat the stern of the Mazatlan rose out of a ring of white foam, the waves breaking over her as if she had been there for ages, the screw writhing its flanges into the air like some enormous starfish already fastened upon the hulk.

One of the other boats could be seen now and then between them and the shore, a momentary dot of black on the vast blur of green and gray.

There was no conversation; the men relieved each other at the oars or bailed out the water with their caps and hands, scarcely interchanging a word.  The only utterance was an occasional moaning from among the women and children.  There was nothing to eat; long since the two whisky flasks had been exhausted.  The rain fell steadily into the sea with a prolonged rippling noise.

Vandover was leaning upon the gunwale of the boat, his head buried in his arms, when suddenly he raised himself and asked of the man who sat next to him: 

“What was the matter last night?  What caused the accident?”

The other shook his head, wearily, turning away again.  However, the engineer answered: 

“We couldn’t carry coal enough to keep up the right pressure of steam and drifted in upon a reef.  I said once before that it would happen some time.”

About an hour later Vandover dropped off to sleep, in spite of the cold, the wet, and the torment in his thumb.  He dozed and woke, and dozed again all through the morning.  About noon he was awakened by a more violent rolling of the boat, the sound of voices, and a stir among the other passengers.

It was still raining; the boat was no longer cutting the waves with her nose, but was being rowed seaward flank on; a sailor stood in the bow holding a coil of rope.  Close in and seen over the tops of the waves were the shaking and slatting sails of a pilot-boat, lying to.  One of the sails bore an enormous number six.