It was due, of course, to
our having come up, until we had brought the other packet on to the
beam.
It is curious how all this flashed through my mind, and held my
attention--although only momentarily--in the face of the Skipper's
storming. I think I had hardly realised he was still singing out at me.
Anyhow, the next thing I remember, he was shaking my arm.
"What's the matter with you, man?" he was shouting. And I just stared
into his face, like an ass, without saying a word. I seemed still
incapable, you know, of actual, reasoning speech.
"Are you damned well off your head?" he went on shouting. "Are you a
lunatic? Have you had sunstroke? Speak, you gaping idiot!"
I tried to say something; but the words would not come clearly.
"I--I--I--" I said, and stopped, stupidly. I was all right, really; but
I was so bewildered with the thing I had found out; and, in a way, I
seemed almost to have come back out of a distance, you know.
"You're a lunatic!" he said, again. He repeated the statement several
times, as if it were the only thing that sufficiently expressed his
opinion of me.
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