" becomes a truism from
perpetual illustration? Neither is it agreeable, after falling into an
uncertain doze, to feel dampness mingling strangely with your dreams,
and to awake to find yourself, as it were, an island in a little salt
lake formed by distillation through invisible crevices.

"Oh, laith, laith were our gude Scot lords
To wet their cork-heeled shoon,"

says the grand old ballad; so, I suppose, it is nothing "unbecoming the
character of an officer and a gentleman" to hold such midnight
irrigation in utter abhorrence.

On one of these occasions I abandoned a post no longer tenable, and went
into the small saloon close by, to seek a dry spot whereon to finish the
night, I found it occupied by a ghastly man, with long, wild gray hair,
and a white face--striding staggeringly up and down--moaning to himself
in a harsh, hollow voice, "No rest; I can't rest." He never spoke any
other words, and never ceased repeating these, while I remained to hear
him. Instantly there came back to my memory a horrible German tale, read
and forgotten fifteen years ago, of a certain old and unjust steward,
Daniel by name, who, having murdered his master by casting him down an
oubliettes, ever haunted the fatal tower, first as a sleep-walker, then
as a restless ghost--moaning and gibbering to himself, and tearing at a
walled-up door with bleeding hands. The train of thought thereby
suggested was so very sombre, that I preferred returning to my cabin,
and climbing into an unfurnished berth, to spending more minutes in that
weird company. I never made the man out satisfactorily afterwards. It is
possible that he was one of the few who scarcely showed on deck, till we
were in sight of land; but rather, I believe, like other visions and
voices of the night, he changed past recognition under the garish light
of day.

Then come the noisy nuisances, extending through all the diapason of
sound. One--the most annoying--to which the ear never becomes callous by
use, is the incessant crash, not only alongside, but overhead. At
intervals--more frequent, of course, after our bulwarks were swept
away--the green water came tumbling on board by tons; and, being unable
to escape quickly enough by the after-scuppers, surged backwards and
forwards with every roll of the vessel, as if it meant to keep you down
and bury you forever. Lying in my berth, I could feel the heavy seas
smite the strong ship one cruel blow after another on her bows