Chapter 19

Ay, he does well enough, if he be disposed,
And so do I too; he does it with a better grace, but
I do it more natural.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

The sleep of the weary is sweet. Of all the party that lay thus buried in
sleep, on the verge of the Great Desert, exposed at any moment to an
assault from its ruthless and predatory occupants, but one bethought him
of the danger; though _he_ was, in truth, so little exposed as to have
rendered it of less moment to himself than to most of the others, had he
not been the possessor of a fancy that served oftener to lead him astray
than for any purposes that were useful of pleasing. This person was in one
of the boats, and as they lay at a reasonable distance from the land, and
the barbarians would not probably have known how to use any craft had they
even possessed one, he was consequently safe from everything but a
discharge from their long muskets. But this remote risk sufficed to keep
him awake, it being very different things to foster malice, circulate
gossip, write scurrilous paragraphs, and cant about the people, and to
face a volley of fire-arms. For the one employment, nature, tradition,
education, and habit, had expressly fitted Mr. Dodge; while for the other,
he had not the smallest vocation. Although Mr. Leach, in setting his
look-outs on board the boats, had entirely overlooked the editor of the
Active Inquirer, never before had that vigilant person's inquiries been
more active than they were throughout the whole of that long night, and
twenty times would he have aroused the party on false alarms, but for the
cool indifference of the phlegmatic seamen, to whom the duty more properly
belonged. These brave fellows knew too well the precious qualities of
sleep to allow that of their shipmates to be causelessly disturbed by the
nervous apprehensions of one who carried with him an everlasting stimulant
to fear in the consciousness of demerit. The night passed away
undisturbed, therefore, nor was the order of the regular watch broken
until the look-outs in the wreck, agreeably to their orders, awoke Captain
Truck and his mates.

It was now precisely at the moment when the first, and as it might be the
fugitive, rays of the sun glide into the atmosphere, and, to use a quaint
expression, "dilute its darkness." One no longer saw by starlight, or by
moonlight, though a little of both were still left; but objects, though
indistinct and dusky, had their true outlines, while every moment rendered
their surfaces more obvious.

When Captain Truck appeared on deck, his first glance was at the ocean;
for, were its tranquillity seriously disturbed, it would be a death-blow
to all his hopes. Fortunately, in this particular, there was no change.