yond bearing. "Let me free, or I
promise you you shall suffer for it, and those curs too."

"Didst ever see such a brimstone galley! I'll soon bring you to
your bearings," and with that he gave me a cuff on the head which
made me dizzy.

He left me then with the others, and soon afterwards I saw Cludde
go over the side, taking farewell of the captain, and, to my
surprise, of Vetch also. Still more astonished was I when, the
order being given to throw off, the vessel dropped down with the
tide, having Vetch still aboard. We made the mouth of the river,
and stood out to sea; it was clear that my old enemy and I were to
be shipmates, though I could not guess the purpose of his crossing
the ocean.

During the ship's slow beating out I had had leisure to look about
me, and I now knew that I was aboard the Dolphin, the privateer
whose fitting out I had watched from the quayside. Despite my sorry
situation I felt a stirring of interest and excitement; a privateer
would scarce put to sea for nothing, and the thought that ere many
days were passed I might be in the midst of a sea fight helped to
drive my grievances from my mind. Withal I was puzzled: if slavery
was not to be my lot, what had my enemies gained?

But I was soon, in sooth, in no state either to feed my imagination
or to nurse my wrongs. The unaccustomed motion of the vessel
produced on me the effect which but few escape; and we were no
sooner fairly out in the Channel than I turned sick, and suffered
the more severely, as I was told afterwards, because I had had no
food for upwards of fifteen hours. For a whole day I lay in
helpless misery: but then Captain Cawson (so he was named) himself
came to me, hauled me to my feet, and with an oath bade me go and
scrub the floor of the cook's galley. At the time I thought him a
monster of brutality, driving me to my death; but I soon learned
that nothing prolongs sea sickness, or indeed any sickness, so much
as brooding on it, and the activity thus forced upon me had some
part, I doubt not, in hastening my recovery.

From that time I was the ship's drudge. At everybody's beck and
call, I was employed from morning till night in all kinds of menial
offices. It was a hard life, and the treatment meted out to me was
rough; but having got the better of my first rage and indignation,
I resolved to make the best of my situation and to show no
sullenness; besides I honestly wished to learn all that I could of
a sailor's dut