Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/147

 ablaze with lights. Forms moved hazily. The air reeked of oil. An appalling tumult assaulted his ears. The force that held his head up was removed and he sank back with a sigh and went to sleep again.

When he next awoke he was still in the white place and the lights still gleamed, but the noise had ceased and the smell of oil had given way to an odor he could not describe even to himself. And, which was stranger than all, instead of the pitching and tossing he remembered, the place where he lay was almost motionless.

Painfully, for he felt weak and dizzy, and every bone and muscle in his tired body ached, he stopped gazing at the bottom of the bunk above him and moved his head so that he could view his surroundings. He began to remember slowly as he did so, and by the time he realized his surroundings the events of the night before were in orderly sequence. He sighed deeply, and:

"Gee! I'm still alive!" he muttered.

It was a strange place in which he found himself, but his visit to the submarine in New London that time enabled him to recognize it. He was lying in one of the lower bunks in the forward battery compartment which is the men's quarters. There were twelve of these bunks in all, six on each 122