As for the location of the schooner, she lay out in the stream, some
three or four cables' length off the yards and docks of a ship-building
concern. No other ship or boat of any description was anchored nearer
than at least 300 yards. She was a fine, roomy vessel, three-masted,
about 150 feet in length overall. She lay head up stream, and from where
I lay by Hardenberg on the quarterdeck I could see her tops sharply
outlined against the sky above the Golden Gate before I went to sleep.
I suppose it was very early in the morning--nearer two than three--when
I awoke. Some movement on the part of Hardenberg--as I afterward found
out--had aroused me. But I lay inert for a long minute trying to find
out why I was not in my own bed, in my own home, and to account for the
rushing, rippling sound of the tide eddies sucking and chuckling around
the _Lass's_ rudder-post.
Then I became aware that Hardenberg was awake. I lay in my hammock,
facing the stern of the schooner, and as Hardenberg had made up his bed
between me and the wheel he was directly in my line of vision when I
opened my eyes, and I could see him without any other movement than that
of raising the eyelids. Just now, as I drifted more and more into
wakefulness, I grew proportionately puzzled and perplexed to account for
a singularly strange demeanour and conduct on the part of my friend.
He was sitting up in his place, his knees drawn up under the blanket,
one arm thrown around both, the hand of the other arm resting on the
neck and supporting the weight of his body.
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