Once - once - I found myself on deck. I don't know how I got
there, or what possessed me to go there, but there I was; and
completely dressed too, with a huge pea-coat on, and a pair of
boots such as no weak man in his senses could ever have got into.
I found myself standing, when a gleam of consciousness came upon
me, holding on to something. I don't know what. I think it was
the boatswain: or it may have been the pump: or possibly the cow.
I can't say how long I had been there; whether a day or a minute.
I recollect trying to think about something (about anything in the
whole wide world, I was not particular) without the smallest
effect. I could not even make out which was the sea, and which the
sky, for the horizon seemed drunk, and was flying wildly about in
all directions. Even in that incapable state, however, I
recognised the lazy gentleman standing before me: nautically clad
in a suit of shaggy blue, with an oilskin hat. But I was too
imbecile, although I knew it to be he, to separate him from his
dress; and tried to call him, I remember, PILOT. After another
interval of total unconsciousness, I found he had gone, and
recognised another figure in its place. It seemed to wave and
fluctuate before me as though I saw it reflected in an unsteady
looking-glass; but I knew it for the captain; and such was the
cheerful influence of his face, that I tried to smile: yes, even
then I tried to smile. I saw by his gestures that he addressed me;
but it was a long time before I could make out that he remonstrated
against my standing up to my knees in water - as I was; of course I
don't know why. I tried to thank him, but couldn't. I could only
point to my boots - or wherever I supposed my boots to be - and say
in a plaintive voice, 'Cork soles:' at the same time endeavouring,
I am told, to sit down in the pool. Finding that I was quite