TWO DAYS AT SEA I27

me to reach the merchantman, provided I escape the
vigilance of the watch?

In the first place I had to get out of my cabin, and to
climb up the ladder. I heard no noise in the men’s
quarters nor from the deck. Themen should be asleep by
this time. I would try!

But when I tried to open the door of my cabin I dis-
covered that it was fastened on the outside, as I might
have foreseen.

I had to renounce a project which, indeed, had against
it many chances of failure. The best thing to do was to
sleep, for I was very tired in mind if not in body, suffering
as I was from incessant anxiety and associations of con-
tradictory ideas.

I must have fallen asleep, for I was aroused by a noise
such as I had never heard before on board the schooner.

The dawn was beginning to come in through the glass
in my port-hole, which faced the east. I consulted my
watch, It was half-past four.

My first question was whether the £dda was under way.

No, certainly; neither with her sails nor her propeller.
I must have been conscious of any movement. Besides,
the sea appeared as tranquil at sunrise as it had been the
night before at sunset. Ifthe 2a had advanced while I
slept, she was certainly motionless now.

The noise which I alluded to was of rapid comings and
goings on deck, the footsteps of men carrying loads. At
the same time it seemed to me a like commotion filled
the hold under the floor of my cabin, to which the great