At last, just as Mark had decided that he would get up and go and join Mr Gregory and Small, to sit and talk to them, he dropped off fast asleep, and started into wakefulness again listening, for he fancied he had heard that appalling roar.
All still save the sigh of some sleeper, and once more he lay down hot, weary, and uncomfortable, for sleeping in his clothes seemed to be a horrible mistake. He had never before realised how many buttons he had about him; for, if he lay on one side, a brass button seemed to be thinking that it was a seal, and his ribs were wax. On the other side it was just as bad. If he turned over on his face, as if about to swim in the soft sand, the sensation was horrible from his throat downwards; while, if, in despair, he lay flat on his back, he felt as if a couple of holes were being bored into his waist, working their way on slowly till he told himself he could bear no more.
Just then Captain Strong came to the front of the bed, stepping on to his legs, walking right up him, and sitting down upon his chest, telling him he was a disobedient son for not going down into the hold of the ship to dig out the stowaway with the old blue earthenware shell that lay in the tea-caddy at home, a measure which, when filled three times, was considered sufficient for the pot. After that Mrs Strong came and looked at him reproachfully for feeling dissatisfied with his father’s proceedings. She told him he had no business to consider the captain heavy, for he had often carried him when a little boy, while now it was his duty to carry his father.
The position seemed painful and tiresome to Mark, for the captain was so unreasonable; he kept on scolding him in a gruff voice for not getting up to dig out the stowaway, who by some singular arrangement was deep down in the hold below the packages of cargo, and at the same time standing at the foot of the bed with a handkerchief tied round his head, looking wistfully at him, as if appealing to him to come and use the caddy-spoon, and yet the captain would not get up.
It was a terrible trouble to Mark, for his reason told him that his father’s conduct in sitting upon him was absurd and bad for his chest, and yet all the while he felt that his father must know best.
But then there was the little brittle caddy-spoon. He wanted to think it was correct; but his reason told him it was absurd to attempt to dig up a man with such a pitiful tool. If his father would only have got off his chest and reasoned with him he would not have cared; but here he was, a big heavy man, squatted just upon the top button of his waistcoat, his legs drawn up, his knees at his chin, and his face staring right into Mark’s.
It was no wonder that the lad felt in a perspiration, and was ready to reproach his mother for not assisting him in what was minute by minute growing a more painful position; but Mrs Strong did not stir; the captain kept up in constant repetition his scolding apostrophe, and the stowaway looked more dismal than ever.
Mark tried to change his position a little so as to get ease, for the heels of the captain’s boots were very hard, but to move was impossible, try how he would. He wanted to speak, but the words would not come; the oppression on his chest grew more terrible; and at last, unable to bear it any longer, he took hold of his father’s thick, short, curly whiskers with both hands as he tried to thrust him away.
For response the captain uttered a low deep remonstrant growl, and Mark awoke, to find himself on his back holding Bruff’s coat in his hands, and the dog protesting, for he found Mark’s chest a comfortable place. Jack had agreed with him, and the pair were cuddled up together in a sort of knot which rolled off on to the sand as the lad threw himself upon his side.
Mark lay panting and hot for some time, and then once more oblivion came over him, this time with no painful nightmare full of absurdities, but a deep heavy dreamless sleep, from which he started up in horror with that appalling roar ringing in his ears and dying away in the distance.