Lord, how they did laugh! Agnes, too, who never before could get beyond a very faint smile, grew almost hysterical at my performance.

As for me, I only wanted this to complete my long threatened misfortune; sea sickness in all its most miserable forms, set in upon me, and, ere half an hour, I lay upon that heap of small stones, as indifferent to all round and about me as though I were dead.

Oh, the long, dreary hours of that melancholy day; it seemed like a year.

They tacked and tacked, they were beat and tacked again, the sea washing over me, and the ruffianly sailors trampling upon me without the slightest remorse, whenever they had any occasion to pass back or forward.

From my long trance of suffering I was partly roused by the steward shaking my shoulder, saying, "'The gentlemen wish to know, sir, if you'd like summat to eat, as they're a goin' to have a morsel; we are getting into slack water now.' "'Where are we ?' I replied, in a sepulchral voice.
"'Off the Hook, sir; we have had a most splendid run, but I fear we'll catch it soon; there's some dirty weather to the westward.' "'God grant it,' said I, piously and in a low tone.
"'Did you say you'd have a bit to eat.