‘So the shipmaster came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, O sleeper? Arise, call on your God, if so be that God will think on us, so that we perish not.” '
The shipmaster was concerned to see that while his mariners were doing all that they could to persuade their gods to rescue the ship, their passenger did not appear to be interested. And he woke him up and asked him what he meant by sleeping at such a time. Then he called on him to ‘arise, call on your God', just in case his God might think on their predicament so that they did not perish. It is clear that to him this was a last desperate venture, in which he did not put much hope, but was prepared to try because of the circumstances.