My dreams always wound up with imaginations
of babbling drinks, and then I'd wake with the froth upon my lips.
However, I got some ease by leaving my handkerchief to soak in the
dew and then sucking it.
Several times during the night I had got on to the upper poop--the
deck above the poop anciently termed the poop-royal--and looked
around me. But there was nothing to see, not a shadow to catch the
eye. The breeze freshened somewhat about midnight, and the air
was made pleasant by the musical noises of running waters. I fell
asleep an hour before dawn, and when I awoke the early ashen line
was brightening in the east. The birth of the day is rapid in those
parallels, and the light of the morning was soon all over sea and
sky. I turned to search the ocean, and the first thing I saw was a
brig not above half a mile from the island. She had studding sails
set, and was going north, creeping along before the breeze. The
instant I saw her I rushed on to the poop, where my figure would be
best seen, and fell to flourishing my handkerchief like a maniac.
I sought to shout, but my voice was even weaker than it had been
after I fell overboard.
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