henever
I ceased struggling for sleep, and lighted the lamp and read, my skin
irritation decreased. But as soon as I turned out the lamp and closed my
eyes I was troubled again. So hour after hour passed, through which,
between vain attempts to sleep, I managed to wade through many pages of
Rosny's _Le Termite_--a not very cheerful proceeding, I must say,
concerned as it is with the microscopic and over-elaborate recital of
Noel Servaise's tortured nerves, bodily pains, and intellectual
phantasma. At last I tossed the novel aside, damned all analytical
Frenchmen, and found some measure of relief in the more genial and
cynical Stendhal.

Over my head I could hear Mr. Mellaire steadily pace up and down. At
four the watches changed, and I recognized the age-lag in Mr. Pike's
promenade. Half an hour later, just as the steward's alarm went off,
instantly checked by that light-sleeping Asiatic, the _Elsinore_ began to
heel over on my side. I could hear Mr. Pike barking and snarling orders,
and at times a trample and shuffle of many feet passed over my head as
the weird crew pulled and hauled. The _Elsinore_ continued to heel over
until I could see the water against my port, and then she gathered way
and dashed ahead at such a rate that I could hear the stinging and
singing of the foam through the circle of thick glass beside me.

The steward brought me coffee, and I read till daylight and after, when
Wada served me breakfast and helped me dress. He, too, complained of
inability to sleep. He had been bunked with Nancy in one of the rooms in
the 'midship-house. Wada described the situation. The tiny room, made
of steel, was air-tight when the steel door was closed. And Nancy
insisted on keeping the door closed. As a result Wada, in the upper
bunk, had stifled. He told me that the air had got so bad that the flame
of the lamp, no matter how high it was turned, guttered down and all but
refused to burn. Nancy snored beautifully through it all, while he had
been unable to close his eyes.

"He is not clean," quoth Wada. "He is a pig. No more will I sleep in
that place."

On the poop I found the _Elsinore_, with many of her sails furled,
slashing along through a troubled sea under an overcast sky. Also I
found Mr. Mellaire marching up and down, just as I had left him hours
before, and it took quite a distinct effort for me to realize that he had
had the watch off between four and eight. Even then, he told me,