Sometimes they fell asleep; and
being missed directly that anything was to be done, their shipmates
often amused themselves by running them aloft with a pulley dropped
down the scuttle from the fore-top.
One night, when all was perfectly still, I lay awake in the
forecastle; the lamp was burning low and thick, and swinging from its
blackened beam; and with the uniform motion of the ship, the men in
the bunks rolled slowly from side to side; the hammocks swaying in
unison.
Presently I heard a foot upon the ladder, and looking up, saw a wide
trousers' leg. Immediately, Navy Bob, a stout old Triton, stealthily
descended, and at once went to groping in the locker after something
to eat.
Supper ended, he proceeded to load his pipe. Now, for a good
comfortable smoke at sea, there never was a better place than the
Julia's forecastle at midnight. To enjoy the luxury, one wants to
fall into a kind of dreamy reverie, only known to the children of the
weed. And the very atmosphere of the place, laden as it was with the
snores of the sleepers, was inducive of this. No wonder, then, that
after a while Bob's head sunk upon his breast; presently his hat fell
off, the extinguished pipe dropped from his mouth, and the next
moment he lay out on the chest as tranquil as an infant.
