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She got a grip on the seaan to cliled to reach the child, screa handfuls of cloth and flesh

The e her The ladder was fixed, but the seaman, one-handed and pulled off balance, swayed wildly, his look of rage turning to alarer lunge forward, grabbing the child like a rugger ball as the seaman threw his arled like lovers, ether into the open maw of the hatchway There was a crash and more screams from below, then the sudden, ain, below, and ato stop its whi with aard pats It seemed curiously loose-jointed in his arht flashed over Roger as the bosun lifted his lantern high, looking at the child with distaste

"Hope you have had the pox, MacKenzie," he said

It ee Gilbert, the lad with sore eyes--but two days had nized hione so thin that the skullbones showed The fair, dirt-sed under apustules so thick that the eyes were ister the sight before hands plucked the srasp the sudden emptiness in his ar toward the rail in vain reflex, hands curled in fists of shock, but then turned back as a new roar caers had recovered from the surprise of the attack A rush ofthey could seize, and fell upon the sea theer and he fell, rolling to the side as a stool leg thudded into the deck near his head He got to his hands and knees, was kicked in the ribs, shied and was pushed, heaved back against obstruction, and with a s, having no idea whether he fought crew or passengers, fighting only for room to stand up and breathe

The stink of sickness rolled out of the hold, a sweet, rotting smell that overlaid the usual harsh reek of ripe bodies and sewage The lanterns sith the wind, and light and shadow cut the scene to pieces, so that here showed a face, wild-eyed and shouting, there an arm upraised, here a nakd foot, only to vanish in the darkness and be replaced at once by elbows and knives and thrusting knees, so the deck see was the confusion that Roger felt dis nu to find the lih, and he raised it by reflex, fending off an unseen blow that jarred through bone

So round, elbowed so air He found hi for breath Two figures crouched before him, in the shadow of the rail; as he shook his head to clear it, the taller stood up and launched itself at hi his attacker They struck the fore each other in blind earnest Caught in the web of noise and blows, he paid no mind to the disjointed words that panted in his ear

Then a boot struck him, and another, and as he loosed his hold on his opponent, two crewmen kicked theht, and Roger saw the flash of the bosun’s lantern held high, revealing the face of the tall fair-haired passenger--Morag MacKenzie’s husband, green eyes dark and ith fury

MacKenzie was the worse for wear--so was Roger, as he discovered when he passed a hand across his face and felt his split lip--but his skin was clear of pustules

"Good enough," said Hutchinson briefly, and the man was thrust uncereer a rough hand up, and then left hinored, as they finished their work The resistance had been short-lived; though arers eakened by six weeks under hatches, by sickness and scanty food The stronger had been clubbed into suber looked out at the rail and the path of the rabbed the rail and vo the back of nose and throat The water beloas black, and e from exertion, he made his way slowly across the deck Those seamen he passed were silent, but frole thin wail rose up, and up, an endless keen that drew no breath and knew no respite

He nearly fell down the conoring all questions, and wrapped his blanket over his head, trying to shut out the sound of the wailing--to shut out everything

But there was no oblivion to be found in the suffocating woolen folds, and he jerked the blanket off, heart pounding, with a sensation of drowning so strong in his chest that he gulped air, again and again until he felt dizzy, and still breathed deep, as though he must breathe for those who could not

"It’s for the best, lad," Hutchinson had said to hiuts out over the rail "Pox spreads like wildfire; none in that hold would live to make landfall, did we not take out the sick"

And was this better than the slower death of scabs and fever? Not for those left behind; the ent on and on, lancing the silence, piercing wood and heart alike

Maiht by the popping of invisible flashbulbs: the sailor’s contorted face as he fell into the hold; the little boy’s half-openabove the fray, with his face of a fallen angel, watching And the dark hungry water, e past the hull, and he rolled into a shivering ball, oblivious alike to the sweltering heat in the hold, and the sleepy complaint of the man next to him No, not empty He had heard the seamen say that sharks never sleep

"Oh, God," he said aloud "Oh, God!" He should have been praying for the dead, but could not

He rolled again, squir to escape, and in the echo of the futile prayer foundof those few frantic words, panted in his ear during thosefrenzy