He was surrounded by gibbering and leering slant-eyed yellow faces; they screamed at him without letup, and his ears rang with their fiendish outcry. But mingled with, and woven into, that barbarous howl was a softer and friendlier note, at which his groping wits clutched eagerly; it was a clear, musical chant, and somehow, it soothed his hurts, and gave him courage to face his torturers. The yellow faces grimaced horridly at him. He was being roughly rolled about. So, he opened his eyes.
He was staring upward at the bare, wooden bottom-side of a bunk. It was a long moment before he could identify that blank expanse. Then he discovered that he was lying in a bunk, and there was something the matter with his couch, it bounced about, and his feet were, as often as not, higher than his head.
He was in a room. Just before his eyes was a little round window in the wall, and through it filtered a feeble daylight when his feet were ascendant, and when his head was uppermost he glimpsed racing, green water on the other side of the thick glass circle. It was strangely unaccountable.
His eyes roved. The mists were clearing somewhat from his mind. He was in a room, yes, the queerest little cubby-hole he had ever seen. There was a lamp in a rack against the wall, and the lamp remained stationary and upright while the wall behind it reeled drunkenly.
Clothes dangled from pegs as if inhabited by dancing ghosts. Somewhere, crockery rattled. There was an alarming creaking, as if great timbers were grinding together. And there was, over all, a shrill, menacing, unceasing howl—the same dread sounds that had made part of his dream.
Also persisted the singing voice that had drawn him safely out of his marish visions. His eyes, continuing their sweep, passed by a tiny desk, a rack of books, a swinging wash-basin, and encountered the source of that musical chant. The hunchback, Little Billy, was seated crosslegged upon the floor, sewing on some piece of wearing apparel, and, as he deftly plied the needle, he crooned his ditty in the pure tenor that had before charmed Martin.
"A-roving, a-roving,
Since roving's been my ru-u-in——"
So far he got, when he looked up and saw Martin's eyes fixed upon him. He promptly threw his work aside, leaped to his feet and bent over the bunk. His impish, friendly face was wreathed in a cordial smile.
"Why, hello, old scout! Had your sleep out? How do you feel?" was his cheerful greeting.
Martin had been fully occupied in receiving impressions during the few moments he had been awake, and until Little Billy spoke, he had not considered himself. But at the other's words, he suddenly discovered that something was the matter with his body. He was sick. His head hurt, and something terrible was happening to his inner man—he was ascending to great heights only to drop swiftly to great depths. It was his stomach, his stomach was performing a rapid and continuous journey between his throat and the soles of his feet. He ached all over. He felt it was the end; it was approaching dissolution.