Last, a milky glaze would settle over the beast’s eyes ... and we would drag him out and up by donkey-engine, swing him over and out, and drop him, to float, a bobbing tan object, down our receding ocean-path.

* * * * *

The coast of Borneo hovered, far and blue, in the offing, when we struck our first, and last, typhoon.  The mate avowed it was merely the tail-end of a typhoon; if that was the tail-end, it is good that the body of it did not strike down on us.

The surface of the ocean was kicked up into high, ridge-running masses.  The tops of the waves were caught in the wind and whipped into a wide, level froth as if a giant egg-beater were at work ... then water, water, water came sweeping and mounting and climbing aboard, hill after bursting hill.

The deck was swept as by a mountain-torrent ... boards whirled about with an uncanny motion in them.  They came forward toward you with a bound, menacing shin and midriff,—­then on the motion of the ship, they paused, and washed in the opposite direction.

Here and there a steer broke loose, which had to be caught and tethered again.  But in general the animals were too much frightened to do anything but stand trembling and moaning ... when they were not floundering about....

Down below was a suffocating inferno.  For the hatches that were ordinarily kept open for more air, had to be battened down till the waves subsided.

* * * * *

At the very height of the storm, we heard a screaming of the most abject fear.

The jockey had passed, in forgetful excitement, too close to his enemy, The Black Devil—­who had not forgotten, and gave him a horn in the side, under the withered arm.

Several sailors carried the bleeding man aft to the captain ... who dressed his wound with fair skill.  The jockey was not so badly injured, all things considered.  The thrust had slanted and made only a flesh wound ... which enabled the fellow to loaf on a sort of sick-leave, during the rest of the trip.

* * * * *

The storm over, frantically we tore off the hatches again ... to find only ten steers dead below.  The rest were gasping piteously for air.  It was a day’s work, heaving the dead stock overboard ... including the two more which died of the after-effects....

When we went to look the sheep over, we found that over a third of them had been washed overboard.  The rest were huddled, in frightened, bleating heaps, wondering perhaps what kind of an insane world it was that they had been harried into.

* * * * *

The story of this cattleboat unfolds freshly before me again, out of the records of memory ... the pitiful suffering of the cattle ... the lives and daily doings of the rowdy, likeable men, who were really still undeveloped children, and would so go down to the grave ... with their boasting and continual vanity of small and trivial things of life.