At length, however, I fell into a somewhat restless sleep, from which I was awakened some time later by sounds of confusion on deck--the shouting of orders, the trampling of feet, the violent casting of ropes upon the deck, the flapping of loose canvas in the wind, the creaking of yards, and the various other sounds that usually follow upon the happening of anything amiss on board a ship; and at the same time I became conscious of something unusual in the "feel" of the ship.  For a moment I was puzzled to decide what it was; but by the time that I had jumped out of my berth and was broad awake I knew what had happened. The ship was ashore!  Yet she must have taken the ground very easily, for I had been conscious of no shock; and even as I stood there I was unable to detect the least motion of the hull.  She was as firmly fixed, apparently, and as steady, as though she had been lying in a dry dock.