The tumblers and wineglasses, stuck in a rack over the table, kept clinking and clinking; and the cabin lamp, suspended by four gilt chains from the ceiling, swayed to and fro crazily.

Now the floor seemed to rise, and now it seemed to sink under one's feet like a feather-bed.
There were not more than a dozen passengers on board, including ourselves; and all of these, excepting a bald-headed old gentleman--a retired sea-captain--disappeared into their staterooms at an early hour of the evening.
After supper was cleared away, my father and the elderly gentleman, whose name was Captain Truck, played at checkers; and I amused myself for a while by watching the trouble they had in keeping the men in the proper places.

Just at the most exciting point of the game, the ship would careen, and down would go the white checkers pell-mell among the black.

Then my father laughed, but Captain Truck would grow very angry, and vow that he would have won the game in a move or two more, if the confounded old chicken-coop--that's what he called the ship--hadn't lurched.
"I--I think I will go to bed now, please," I said, laying my band on my father's knee, and feeling exceedingly queer.
It was high time, for the Typhoon was plunging about in the most alarming fashion.

I was speedily tucked away in the upper berth, where I felt a trifle more easy at first.