I climbed down gingerly, however, holding on to anything I could clutch until I reached the deck-house, which was now nearly knee-deep in the water that was sluicing fore and aft the ship with every pitch and dive she gave, or washing in a body athwart the deck as she rolled, and dashing like a wave against the bulwarks within.
I went to turn in to my bunk, which was on top of that occupied by Sam Weeks, who, very luckily for him, had to turn out, going aft on duty with the rest of the starboard watch; for, in my struggles to ascend to the little narrow shelf that served me for a bed, and which from the motion of the ship was almost perpendicular one moment and the next horizontal, I would have pretty well trampled him to jelly, having to stand on the lower bunk to reach the upper one assigned to me.
Ultimately, however, I managed to climb up to my perch and pulled my blankets about me; and then I tried to sleep as well as the roaring of the wind and rushing wash of the sea, in concert with the creaking of the chain-plates and groaning of the ship's timbers and myriad voices of the deep, would let me.
But, it was all in vain! Hitherto, although I had been more than two days and two nights on board and had sailed all the way from the docks along the river and down the Channel, I had never yet been sea-sick, smiling at Tim Rooney's stereotyped inquiry each day of me, "An' sure, Misther Gray-ham, aren't ye sorry yit ye came to say ?" Since the afternoon, however, when the water had become rougher and the ship more lively, I had begun to experience a queer sensation such as I recollect once having at home at Christmas-time--on which occasion Dr Jollop, who was called in to attend me, declared I had eaten too much plum-pudding, just in order to give me some of his nasty pills, of course! I hadn't had the chance of having anything so good as that now; but, at tea-time Tom Jerrold, who, like myself, had made friends with Ching Wang, had induced him to compound a savoury mess entitled, "dandy funk," composed of pounded biscuits, molasses, and grease.

Of this mess, I am sorry to say, I had partaken; and the probable source of my present ailment was, no doubt, the insidious dandy funk wherewith Jerrold had beguiled me.
Oh, that night! Dandy funk or no, I could not soon forget it, for I never was so sick in my life; and what is more, every roll of the ship made me worse, so that I thought I should die--Tom Jerrold, the heartless wretch, who was snoring away as usual in the next bunk to Weeks' below, not paying the slightest attention to my feeble calls to him for help and assistance between the paroxysms of my agonising qualms.
Somehow or other a sympathetic affinity seemed to be established between the vessel and myself, I rolling as she rolled and heaving when she heaved; while my heart seemed to reach from the Atlantic back to the Channel, and I felt as if I had swallowed the ocean and was trying to get rid of it and couldn't! _Ille robur et aes triplex_, as Horace sang on again getting safely ashore--for he must have been far too ill when afloat in his trireme-- and as father used to quote against me should I praise the charms of a sailor's life, "framed of oak and fortified with triple brass" must have been he who first braved the perils of the sea and made acquaintance with that fell demon whom our French neighbours style more elegantly than ourselves _le mal de mer_! Weeks had his revenge upon me now with a vengeance indeed for all he might have suffered from my pummelling of the previous day; yes, and for the reproach of the two black eyes I had given him, which had since altered their colouring to the tints of the sea and sky, they being now of a bluish-purple hue shaded off into green and yellow, so that the general effect harmonised, as Tom Jerrold unkindly remarked, with his sandy hair and mottled complexion.
But, my whilom enemy and now friend Sammy must have been amply indemnified for all this when, at the end of the middle watch, he came in due course to rouse me out again for another turn of duty, not knowing that Mr Mackay, as if anticipating what would happen after the shaking up I had had, had given me leave to lie-in if I liked and "keep my watch below;" for, when Weeks succeeded in opening the door of the deck-house, which he did with much difficulty against the opposing forces of the wind and the water that united to resist his efforts, he found me completely prostrate and in the very apogee of my misery.
"Hullo, Graham!" he called out, clutching hold of the corner of the blanket that enveloped one of my limp legs, which was hanging down almost as inanimate over the side of the bunk, and shaking this latter, too, as vigorously as he did the blanket.

"Rouse out, it's gone eight bells and the port watch are already on deck, with Mr Mackay swearing away at a fine rate because you're not there--rouse out with you, sharp!" There was no rousing me, however, pull and tug and shake away as much as he pleased both at my leg and the blanket.
"Leave me alone," I at last managed to say loud enough for him to hear me.

"Mr Mackay told me I needn't turn out unless I felt well enough; and, oh, Weeks, I do feel so awfully ill!" "Ill! what's the row with you ?" "I don't know," I feebly murmured.

"I think I'm going to die; and I'm so sorry I hurt your eyes yesterday, they do look so bad." "Oh, hang my eyes!" replied he hastily, as if he did not like the subject mentioned; and I don't wonder at this now, when I recollect how very funny they looked, all green and yellow as if he had a pair of goggle-eyed spectacles on.