THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
him and of the unquiet swinging of the boat. He felt much as he had felt once several years before when a dentist had given him gas to extract a tooth, sort of half here and half there, as he expressed it to himself. He dreamed ridiculous things, although he would have declared afterwards that he had not been enough asleep to dream. One vivid nightmare, in which he was astride a torpedo and shooting along the surface of the water at something like a mile a minute making straight for the towering side of the biggest dreadnought that human imagination had ever visioned, brought him awake with a yelp of terror.
"'Tain't so," said a sleeply voice from across the passage.
The clock in the central station said ting-ting, ting-ting, ting! Relieved to find that it really wasn't so, Nelson settled his head in the crook of his arm again and again closed his eyes. But just as drowsiness was stealing back he heard from beyond the door the short command: "Rise!"
It didn't refer to him, of course, but he obeyed it, curiosity getting the better of sleepiness. There was a sound of rushing air and water as the tanks were blown. He tumbled out of the bunk and stole to the door, doing the last few steps uphill as the
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