Wada had not yet gone to bed, and from him I got more cream of tartar.

It was useless, however, and at midnight, when I heard the watch changing, I partially dressed, slipped into my dressing-gown, and went up on to the poop.
I saw Mr.Mellaire beginning his four hours' watch, pacing up and down the port side of the poop; and I slipped away aft, past the man at the wheel, whom I did not recognize, and took refuge in the lee of the wheel- house.
Once again I studied the dim loom and tracery of intricate rigging and lofty, sail-carrying spars, thought of the mad, imbecile crew, and experienced premonitions of disaster.

How could such a voyage be possible, with such a crew, on the huge _Elsinore_, a cargo-carrier that was only a steel shell half an inch thick burdened with five thousand tons of coal?
It was appalling to contemplate.

The voyage had gone wrong from the first.

In the wretched unbalance that loss of sleep brings to any good sleeper, I could decide only that the voyage was doomed.