“Very well, sir, if you won’t sleep reg’lar, so be it.”
But it proved to be hard work. Nature is a terrible tyrant to those who try to break her laws, and after about an hour’s duty on deck, when the clustering stars had been watched, and their reflections in the sea, the wheel visited again and again, an ear given from time to time at the forecastle hatch and ventilator, where everything was silent as the grave, all of a sudden Mark would find himself at home, talking to his father and mother, or on board the Nautilus, listening to Mr Whitney, the doctor, or to the captain, and then start up with a jerk to find he had been asleep.
“How long was I off, Tom?” he would whisper, angry with himself.
“’Bout five minutes, sir.”
“Not more?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s right. All quiet?”
“Yes, sir. Have another.”
“Nonsense! I’m better now.”
Mark took a turn to the wheel, said a few words to the steersman, and returned to his seat, to find that in those brief minutes Tom Fillot had gone off too, but only to start up, fully awake, at the moment his young officer sat down.