The gale continued, however, till four next morning, and such a night I never passed. The doctor said, neither he nor any officer in the ship could sleep, and next morning the poor stewardess and our peculiar cabin boy mournfully deplored their fate, the former being forced to confess that, though for years accustomed to the sea, she had been desperately sick. In fact no one had ever known the vessel to roll before as she did this night, and the sounds were horrible. The effect of one sea, in particular, striking the ship was appalling, from the perfect stillness which followed it. The vessel seemed quite to stagger under the blow and to be paralysed by it, so that several seconds must have elapsed before the heavy rolling recommenced. This, and the creaking and groaning of the vessel, had something solemn about it; but some minor sounds were neither so grand nor so philosophically borne by either Papa or myself. One of the most persevering of these arose from my carelessness in having forgotten to bolt the door of a cupboard which I made use of, in our cabin, the consequence of which was that, with every lurch of the vessel, the door gave a violent slam, and our lamp having been put out at midnight, as it invariably was, we were in total darkness, and without the means of ascertaining whether the irritating noise proceeded, as we suspected, from the cupboard door, or from one of the doors having been left open in the passage adjoining our cabin. It would have been dangerous to have got up in the dark, and with a violent lurching of the vessel, to discover the real cause of this wearisome noise. I had a strong feeling of self-reproach in my own mind at having brought such a calamity on poor Papa, when it could have been avoided if I had been a little more careful before going to bed. On, therefore, the noise went, for the rest of that night, with great regularity--slam--slam--slam--defying every attempt to obtain even five minutes of sleep. With the first gleam of dawn I plainly saw that our own peccant door was the cause, and I was able by that time, with some caution, to rise and secure the bolt, and thus relieve ourselves, and probably our neighbours, from the weary sound.