Somewhere a boot thumped loudly and at irregular intervals against the wall; and, though it was a mild night on the sea, there was a continual chorus of the creaking timbers and bulkheads and of abysmal noises beneath the flooring.
The sleepers did not mind.

There were eight of them,--the two watches below,--and the air was thick with the warmth and odour of their breathing, and the ear was filled with the noise of their snoring and of their sighs and half-groans, tokens plain of the rest of the animal-man.
But were they sleeping?
all of them?
Or had they been sleeping?
This was evidently Wolf Larsen's quest--to find the men who appeared to be asleep and who were not asleep or who had not been asleep very recently.
And he went about it in a way that reminded me of a story out of Boccaccio.
He took the sea-lamp from its swinging frame and handed it to me.

He began at the first bunks forward on the star-board side.

In the top one lay Oofty-Oofty, a Kanaka and splendid seaman, so named by his mates.

He was asleep on his back and breathing as placidly as a woman.