Suddenly, away aft, I heard
shouting, and then on the deck overhead, came the loud thudding of
someone pomping with a capstan-bar. Straightway, I turned and made a run
for the port doorway, along with the four other men. We rushed out
through the doorway on to the deck. It was getting dusk; but that did
not hide from me a terrible and extraordinary sight. All along the port
rail there was a queer, undulating greyness, that moved downwards
inboard, and spread over the decks. As I looked, I found that I saw more
clearly, in a most extraordinary way. And, suddenly, all the moving
greyness resolved into hundreds of strange men. In the half-light, they
looked unreal and impossible, as though there had come upon us the
inhabitants of some fantastic dream-world. My God! I thought I was mad.
They swarmed in upon us in a great wave of murderous, living shadows.
From some of the men who must have been going aft for roll-call, there
rose into the evening air a loud, awful shouting.
"Aloft!" yelled someone; but, as I looked aloft, I saw that the horrible
things were swarming there in scores and scores.
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