He's
likely to be right, for if he isn't, where can the
stuff be? On the other hand, if he's wrong we destroy a
hundred and fifty tons of good rice for nothing. It's
a point to be considered."
"I don't hesitate," said I. "Let's get to the bottom
of the thing. The rice is nothing; the rice will
neither make nor break us."
"That's how I expected you to see it," returned Nares.
And we called the boat away and set forth on our new
quest.
The hold was now almost entirely emptied; the mats (of
which there went forty to the short ton) had been
stacked on deck, and now crowded the ship's waist and
forecastle. It was our task to disembowel and explore
six thousand individual mats, and incidentally to
destroy a hundred and fifty tons of valuable food. Nor
were the circumstances of the day's business less
strange than its essential nature. Each man of us,
armed with a great knife, attacked the pile from his
own quarter, slashed into the nearest mat, burrowed in
it with his hands, and shed forth the rice upon the
deck, where it heaped up, overflowed, and was trodden
down, poured at last into the scuppers, and
occasionally spouted from the vents.
Pages:
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388