The moon now rose, putting all these artificial lights to shame as it flooded the stream with its silver sheen; but I got so sleepy with the night air after all my excitement through the day, besides being thoroughly exhausted from standing so long on my legs, that, as Mr Mackay was pointing out something in connection with Sheerness and the Isle of Sheppey, and a light house on top of a church—I’m sure I can’t recollect what it was all about—I made a stumble forward and nearly fell on my face on the deck, dead beat.
“Poor little chap, you’re tired out,” said the first mate sympathisingly, putting his arm round me and holding me up; “and when a fellow’s tired out, the best thing he can do is to turn in!”
“Eh, sir,” said I sleepily. “Turn where?”
“Turn in, my boy,” he replied laughing. “Go to roost, I mean. To bed—if you understand that better.”
“But where shall I go, sir?” I asked, catching his meaning at last.
“Come along and I’ll soon show you,” he answered, taking me down the poop ladder to the after-deckhouse, and hailing the steward to show a light: “There!”
It was a little narrow box of a cabin with four bunks in it, two on one side running athwart the deck and two fore and aft. The ends of these crossed each other, and they looked exactly like shelves in a cupboard; while, to add to the effect and trench on the already limited space of this apartment, the floor was blocked up by two other sea-chests besides my own, and a lot of loose clothes and other things strewn about.
The two bottom bunks were already occupied, Jerrold and Sam Weeks snoring away respectively in them; and one of the two upper ones was filled with what looked like a collection of odds and ends and crockery ware.—This was the situation.
What was I to do?
I looked at Mr Mackay appealingly.