Chapter Nineteen.
Hurrah! We are off!
As soon as I had screened myself behind the butt, I squatted down; and, in five minutes after, was so fast asleep; that it would have taken all the bells of Canterbury to have waked me. I had got but little sleep on the preceding night, and not a great deal the night before that; for John and I had been early up for the market. The fatigue, moreover, experienced in my cross-country journey, and the excitement of twenty-four hours’ suspense—now somewhat allayed—had quite done me up, and I slept as sound as a top, only that my nap lasted as long as that of a thousand tops.
There had been noises enough to have awaked me much sooner, as I afterwards ascertained. There had been the rattling of pulleys and banging of boxes close to my ears, but I heard nothing of all this.
When I awoke, I knew by my sensations that I had been a long while asleep. It must be far into the night, thought I. I supposed it was night-time, by the complete darkness that enveloped me; for on first squeezing myself behind the butt, I noticed that light came in by the aperture through which I had passed. Now there was none. It was night, therefore, and dark as pitch—that, of course, behind a huge hogshead down in the hold of a ship.
“What time of night? I suppose they have all gone to bed, and are now snug in their hammocks? It must be near morning? Can I hear any one stirring?”
I listened. I had no need to listen intently. I soon heard noises. They were evidently caused by heavy objects striking and bumping, just as if the sailors were still busy lading the vessel. I could hear their voices, too, though not very distinctly. Now and then certain ejaculations reached me, and I could make out the words “Heave!”
“Avast heavin’!” and once the “Yo-heave-ho!” chanted by a chorus of the crew.
“Why, they are actually at work loading the vessel in the night-time!”