for for several hours, when, the wind having changed, the rope
which formed my bed, and proved to be the "main sheet," was
wanted, and I was unceremoniously ejected from my quarters, and
roughly admonished to "go below and keep out of the way!" I
crawled into the cabin, and, stretched on some boxes, endeavored
to get a little sleep; but the conglomeration of smells of a most
inodorous character, which, as it seemed to my distempered fancy,
pervaded every part of the vessel, prevented my losing a sense of
suffering in sleep.

As I lay musing on the changes which a few days had wrought in my
condition, and, borne down by the pangs of seasickness, was
almost ready to admit that there was prose as well as poetry in a
sailor's life, I was startled by a terrific noise, the
announcement, I supposed, of some appalling danger. I heard
distinctly three loud knocks on the deck at the entrance of the
steerage, and then a sailor put his head down the companion-way,
and in a voice loud, cracked, and discordant, screamed in a tone
which I thought must have split his jaws asunder, "LA-AR-BO-A-RD
W-A-T-CH A-H-O-O-Y."

In spite of my sickness I started from my uncomfortable resting
place, scrambled into the steerage, and by a roll of the brig was
tumbled under the steps, and suffered additional pains and
apprehensions before I ascertained that the unearthly sounds
which had so alarmed me were nothing more than the usual mode of
"calling the watch," or in other words, the man with the
unmusical voice had gently hinted to the sleepers below that
"turn-about was fair play," and they were wanted on deck.