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There was no snuff-colored cabin, with a scuttle of the diameter of a saucer, to be found on board the Royal Brunswicker; this ship therefore could not be the vessel that I was mate of. I was hugely puzzled, and my wits whirred in my brain like the works of a watch when the spring breaks, and I continued to peer over the edge of the hammock that I held pressed down, vainly seeking enlightenment in a plain black locker that stood under the scuttle and in what I must call a washstand in the corner of the berth facing the door, and in a small lamp, resembling a cheap tin coffee-pot, standing upon a metal bracket nailed to the bulkhead.

As nothing came to me out of these things I let go the edge of the hammock and gazed at the beam again overhead, and sunk my sensations into the motions of the ship, insomuch that I could feel every roll and toss of her, every dive, pause, and staggering rush forward as though it were a pulse, and I said to myself, “It blows hard, and a tall sea is running, and I am on board a smaller ship than the Royal Brunswicker, and our speed cannot be less than twelve knots an hour through the water.”