.
there was danger of their sprawling over each other and breaking legs in
the scramble. So when one tried to lie down, his tail was twisted till
the suffering made him rise to his feet ... sometimes a steer would be
too weak to regain his feet ... in such a case, in a vain effort to make
the beast rise, I have seen the Irish foreman twist the tail nearly off,
while the animal at first bellowed, then moaned weakly, with anguish ...
a final boot at the victim in angry frustration....
Last, a milky glaze would settle over the beast's eyes ... and we would
drag him out and up by donkey-engine, swing him over and out, and drop
him, to float, a bobbing tan object, down our receding ocean-path.
* * * * *
The coast of Borneo hovered, far and blue, in the offing, when we struck
our first, and last, typhoon. The mate avowed it was merely the tail-end
of a typhoon; if that was the tail-end, it is good that the body of it
did not strike down on us.
The surface of the ocean was kicked up into high, ridge-running masses.
The tops of the waves were caught in the wind and whipped into a wide,
level froth as if a giant egg-beater were at work ... then water, water,
water came sweeping and mounting and climbing aboard, hill after
bursting hill.
The deck was swept as by a mountain-torrent ... boards whirled about
with an uncanny motion in them.
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