I can see him glaring at the iron, startled by the falling rust, overburdened by the knowledge of an imminent death.

This, I gathered, was the second time he had been sent forward by that skipper of his, who, I rather think, wanted to keep him away from the bridge.

He told me that his first impulse was to shout and straightway make all those people leap out of sleep into terror; but such an overwhelming sense of his helplessness came over him that he was not able to produce a sound.

This is, I suppose, what people mean by the tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth.

"Too dry," was the concise expression he used in reference to this state.