over, what was now becoming the lee-side, carried me head over heels into
the shingle ballast in the waist. 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. Sir?'

"'No!--eat!--am I a cannibal?--eat--go away--mark me, my good fellow,
I'll pay you your wages, if ever we get ashore; you'll never set another
foot aboard with me.'