gently through the waves. (I had expected to feel seasick at
first but was delighted to find that I didn't.) Bumpo had been
told off to go downstairs and prepare dinner for us. Chee-Chee
was coiling up ropes in the stern and laying them in neat piles.
My work was fastening down the things on the deck so that nothing
could roll about if the weather should grow rough when we got
further from the land. Jip was up in the peak of the boat with
ears cocked and nose stuck out--like a statue, so still--his
keen old eyes keeping a sharp look-out for floating wrecks,
sand-bars, and other dangers. Each one of us had some special job
to do, part of the proper running of a ship. Even old Polynesia
was taking the sea's temperature with the Doctor's
bath-ther-mometer tied on the end of a string, to make sure there
were no icebergs near us. As I listened to her swearing softly to
herself because she couldn't read the pesky figures in the fading
light, I realized that the voyage had begun in earnest and that
very soon it would be night--my first night at sea!



THE THIRD CHAPTER

OUR TROUBLES BEGIN

JUST before supper-time Bumpo appeared from downstairs and went
to the Doctor at the wheel.

"A stowaway in the hold, Sir," said he in a very business-like
seafaring voice. "I just discovered him, behind the flour-bags."