g, when down came the head of my hammock, and I fell to the
deck with my feet still hanging in the air, like poor Sally, when she
caught the crab. Stunned and stupefied by the fall, bewildered by the
violent concussion and the novelty of all around me, I continued in a
state of somnambulism, and it was some minutes before I could recollect
myself.

The marine sentinel at the gun-room door, seeing what had happened, and
also espying the person to whom I was indebted for this favour, very
kindly came to my assistance. He knotted my lanyard, and restored my
hammock to its place; but he could not persuade me to confide myself
again to such treacherous bedposts, for I thought the rope had broken;
and so strongly did the fear of another tumble possess my mind, that I
took a blanket, and lay down on a chest at some little distance, keeping
a sleepless eye directed to the scene of my late disaster.

This was fortunate; for not many minutes had elapsed, when Murphy, who
had been relieved from the middle-watch, came below, and seeing my
hammock again hanging up, and supposing me in it, took out his knife and
cut it down. "So then," said I to myself, "it was you, was it, who
invaded my slumbers, and nearly dashed my brains out, and have now made
the second attempt." I vowed to Heaven that I would have revenge; and I
acquitted myself of that vow. Like the North American savage, crouching
lest he should see me, I waited patiently till he had got into his
hammock, and was in a sound sleep. I then gently pushed a shot-case
under the head of his hammock, and placed the corner of it so as to
receive his head; for had it split his skull I should not have cared, so
exasperated was I, and so bent on revenge. Subtile and silent, I then
cut his lanyard: he fell, and his head coming in contact with the edge
of the shot-case, he gave a deep groan, and there he lay. I instantly
retreated to my chest and blanket, where I pretended to snore, while the
sentinel, who, fortunately for me, had seen Murphy cut me down the first
time, came with his lanthorn, and seeing him apparently dead, removed
the shot-case out of the way, and then ran to the sergeant of marines,
desiring him to bring the surgeon's assistant.

While the sergeant was gone, he whispered softly to me, "Lie still; I
saw the whole of it, and if you are found out, it may go hard with you."
Murphy, it appeared, had few friends in the ship; all rejoiced at his
accident. I laid v