noon
I remember coming round painfully after that swoon , and eating and drinking , and straightway falling into a dreamless sleep on the deck of the ship ; and I also remember the untoldly evil and fishy smell of the seal oil they had rubbed me with . When I came to myself , my first thought was that a solid wall of that smell stood round me ; but such were the virtues of the oil and the rubbing that when I woke after eighteen hours ' sleep I was not so much as stiff . It would ill beseem me to complain thereof , therefore , but it might have been fresher . When I woke from my great sleep it was long past noon . I lay in the shelter of the gunwales under the curve of the high stern post , wrapped in a yellow Irish cloak , and in my ears roared and surged a deep-voiced song , which kept time with the steady roll of oars and the thrashing of the water under their blades . The ship was quivering in every timber with the pull of them , and I could feel her leap to every stroke . The great red and white sail was set also , and the westerly breeze was humming in it , and over the high bows the spray arched and fell without ceasing as oar and sail drove the sharp stem through the seas .