They were no longer men, but infuriated brutes, so steeped in agony and fear as to have lost all human instincts.

They snarled and snapped like so many beasts, their voices unrecognizable, the stronger treading the weaker to the deck.

I could not see, I could only hear, yet I lay there, staring blindly about, conscious of every horror, and so weak and unnerved as to tremble like a child.
Yet the complete knowledge of what had actually occurred in that frightful hole was only revealed when the violence of the storm finally ceased, and the guards above again lifted the hatch.

The gray light of dawn faintly illumined the inferno below, and the sweet breath of morning air swept down among us.

Then I saw the haggard, uplifted faces, the arms tossed aloft, and heard the wild yell as the stronger charged forward struggling for the foot of the ladder.