Up to that time I had been too much interested with the moving panorama around me to notice things inboard; and, besides, the motion of the _Josephine_, when she got lively in the seaway amongst the islands, produced an uneasy feeling which led me ere long to retire below and bewail my old home and those from whom I had been so ruthlessly severed with greater grief than I had felt before.

I suffered from that fearful nausea which Father Neptune imposes as a penance on the majority of his votaries, and it was wonderful how very melancholy the sensation made me.
However, I struggled gallantly against the fell foe, and, one morning, I crawled out of my bunk early, just as the men began to wash down the decks, the first work of the day aboard ship.

This was shortly after we had cleared the island of Sombrero, and when the _Josephine_ was working her way out to sea.
At first I stopped in the waist, near the entrance to the cabin, but Davis, the second mate, who stood with his trousers tucked up showing his bare feet and legs, superintending the hands sluicing the water about from the hose attached to the head pump out on the forecastle, told me politely to sheer off, as they wanted no idlers in the way; so, I ascended the poop-ladder, and was commiserating the poor fowls in the hen-coops along the rails, when Captain Miles, who was standing close to the helmsman at the wheel, addressed me.
"Hallo, Master Tom," said he, "got your sea-legs again ?" "Yes, captain," I replied, "I'm all right now, thank you." "Beginning to feel peckish, eh ?" "Not very," said I, for I was qualmish still, although the fresh air had considerably revived me even in the short time since I had come out of the close cabin.
"Ah, but you must eat, though, my boy," observed Captain Miles kindly, giving me a kindly pat on the back.

"An empty stomach is the worst thing in the world to voyage on.

Why, you haven't hardly eaten a bite since the other evening when that poor cow knocked our dinner all into the middle of next week! Never mind, though, breakfast will be ready at eight bells, and we'll see whether we can't get some lining upon your ribs, my little skillygalee." "I have already asked Jake to get me a cup of coffee, sir," I said in reply to this; but, before the captain could answer me again, we both had our attention drawn to the deck below.