They were paying the penalty of their overfeeding in Wilmington; and every face looked as if its owner was discovering for the first time what the real lower depths of human misery was.

They all seemed afraid they would not die; as if they were praying for death, but feeling certain that he was going back on them in a most shameful way.
We straightened them around a little, washed them and the decks off with a hose, and then I started down in the hold to see how matters were with the six hundred down there.

The boys there were much sicker than those on deck.

As I lifted the hatch there rose an odor which appeared strong enough to raise the plank itself.

Every onion that had been issued to us in Wilmington seemed to lie down there in the last stages of decomposition.