e in my nose, and it
tasted like iron. Sometimes the next step was at a correct distance
below my feet; and then all that was under me would be swept away. I
descended into the muffled saloon, which was a little box enclosing light
and warmth partially submerged in the waters. There it smelt of hot
engine-oil and stale clothes. I got used to the murmuring transit of
something which swept our outer walls in immense bounds, and the flying
grind of the propeller, and the bang-clang of the rudder when it was
struck . . . and must have gone to sleep. . . .

When I woke, it was because the saloon in my dreams had gone mad.
Perhaps it had been going mad for some time. Really I was not fully
awake--it was four in the morning, the fire was out, and violent draughts
kept ballooning the blanket over me--and in another minute I might have
become quite aware that I had gone to sea for the first time. It was my
bench which properly woke me. It fell away from me, and I, of course,
went after it, and my impression is that I met it halfway on its return
journey, for then there came the swooning sensation one feels in the
immediate ascent of a lift. When the bench was as high as it could go it
overbalanced, canting acutely, and, grabbing my blanket, I left
diagonally for a corner of the saloon, accompanied by some sea-boots I
met under the table. As I was slowly and carefully climbing back, the
floor reversed, and I stopped falling when my head struck a panel. The
panel slid gently along, and the mate's severe countenance regarded me
from inside the bunk. I expected some remonstrance from a tired man who
had been unfairly awakened too soon. "Hurt yourself?" he asked. "It's
getting up outside. Dirty weather. Take things easy."

I took them as easily as perhaps should be expected of a longshoreman.
There was no more sleep, though no more was wanted. By putting out my
hand to the table I managed to keep where I was, even when, in those
moments of greatest insecurity, the screw was roaring in mid-air. Our
fascinating hanging lamp would perform the impossible, hanging acutely
out of plumb; and then, when I was watching this miracle, rattle its
chain and hang the other way. A regiment of boots on the floor--I
suppose it was boots--would tramp to one corner, remain quiet for a
while, and then clatter elsewhere in a body. Towards daybreak the
skipper appeared in shining oilskins, tapped the barometer, glanced at
me, and laugh