Did you ever suffer from that unpleasant bodily disorder--sleep-walking?
Did you ever wake up and find yourself standing undressed in the cold--
somewhere--you can't tell where, only that you are out of bed and on the
floor? You are confused--puzzled--and you want to know what is the
matter. You know you ought to be in bed, or rather you have a vague
kind of belief that you ought to be in bed, and you want to be back
there, but the question directly arises--where is the bed? and for the
life of you you cannot tell. You hold out your hands, and they touch
nothing. You try in another direction--another, and another, with the
same result, and, at last with one hand outstretched to the full extent,
you gradually edge along sidewise till you touch something--wall,
wardrobe, door, and somehow it feels so strange that you seem never to
have touched it before; perhaps you never have, for in daylight one does
not go about one's room touching doors and walls.
Of course the result is that you find your bed at last, and that it is
close to you, for you stretched your hands right over it again and
again; but all the same it is a very singular experience, and the
accompanying confusion most peculiar, and those who have ever had such
an awakening can the better understand Hilary Leigh's feelings as he lay
there longing for the light.
"Well," he exclaimed at last, after vainly endeavouring to pierce the
darkness, and to touch something else but straw and the stones upon
which it had been heaped, "if any one had told me that I should be such
a coward on waking up and finding myself in the dark, I should have hit
him, I'm sure I should. But it is unpleasant all the same. Oh, I say,
how my legs ache!"
This took his attention from his position, and he sat up and then drew
up his legs.
"Well, I must be stupid and confused," he muttered impatiently. "Why do
I sit here and let my legs ache with this rope tied round them when I
might take it off?"
This was better still; it gave him something to do; and he at once
attacked the tight knots, which proved so hard that he pulled out his
pocket-knife, which had not been taken away. But the rope might be
useful for escape! So he closed his knife, and with all a sailor's
deftness of fingers attacked the knots so successfully that he at last
set his legs free, and, coiling up the rope, tucked it beneath the
straw.
"Murder!" he muttered, drawing in his breath; for now that his legs were
freed they seemed to ache and smart most terribly. They throbbed, and
burned, and stung, till he had been rubbing at them for a good
half-hour, after which the circulation seemed to be restored to its
proper force, and he felt better; but even then, when he tried to stand
up they would hardly support his weight, and he was glad to sit down
once more and think.
The darkness was terrible now that he had no longer to make any effort,
and the silence was worse. He might have been buried alive, so solemn
and still did all seem.
But Hilary soon shook off any weak dread that tried to oppress him, and
rising at last he found that he could walk with less pain, and
cautiously leaving the heap of straw upon which he had been lying, he
began to explore.
Slowly and carefully he thrust out one foot and drew the other to it,
feeling with his hands the while, till they came in contact with a wall
that was roughly plastered.
That was something tangible; and gradually feeling his way along this he
came to an angle in the wall, starting off in another direction.
This he traced, and at the end of a few paces came to another angle.
Then again another, and in the next side of what was a stone-floored,
nearly square apartment, he felt a door.
There was the way out, then. The door was not panelled, but of slant
bevelled boards, crossed by strong iron hinges, and--yes--here was the
keyhole; but on bending down and looking through, he could feel a cold
draught of air, but see no light.
"There must be a window," he thought; and to find this he searched the
place again as high as he could reach, but without avail; and at last he
found his way back to the heap of straw, and threw himself down in
disgust.
"Well, I sha'n't bother," he muttered. "I'm shut up here just as if I
was in prison. I've been to sleep, and I've woke up in the dark,
because it's night; and that's about the worst of it. I don't see
anything to mind. There's no watch to keep, so I sha'n't be roused up
by that precious bell; and as every sailor ought to get a good long
sleep whenever he can, why here goes."
Perhaps Hilary Leigh's thoughts were not quite so doughty as his words;
but whatever his thoughts were, he fought them down in the most manful
way, stretched himself out upon the straw, and after lying thinking for
a few minutes he dropped off fast asleep, breathing as regularly and
easily as if he had been on board the _Kestrel_, and rocked in the
cradle of the deep.