y wore on, they only
took the deeper tints of gathering clouds which hid the sun.

If the weather was dull, our course was not less so. We only saw one
ship from the deck, a mail-steamer, as neat and trim as a yacht, which
passed us at a tremendous pace, with a knot of officers on the bridge.
Some black objects bobbing up and down in the distance were pointed out
to me as porpoises, and a good many sea-gulls went by, flying landwards.
Not only was the sky overcast, but the crew seemed to share the
depression of the barometer, which, as everybody told everybody else,
was falling rapidly. The captain's voice rang out in brief but frequent
orders, and the officers clustered in knots on the bridge, their gold
cap-bands gleaming against the stormy sky.

I worked hard through the day, and was sick off and on as the ship
rolled, and the great green waves hit her on the bows, and ran away
along her side, and the wind blew and blew, and most of the sails were
hauled in and made fast, and one or two were reefed up close, and the
big chimney swayed, and the threatening clouds drifted forwards at a
different pace from our own, till my very fingers felt giddy with
unrest; but not another practical joke did I suffer from that day, for
every man's hand was needed for the ship.

In the afternoon she had rolled so heavily in the trough of the large
waves, that no one made any pretence of finding his sea-legs strong
enough to keep him steady without clutching here and there for help, and
I had been thankful, in a brief interval when nobody had ordered me to
do anything, to scramble into a quiet corner of the forecastle and lie
on the boards, rolling as the ship rolled, and very much resigned to
going down with her if she chose to go.

Towards evening it was thick and foggy, but as the sun set it began to
clear, and I heard the men saying that the moon (which was nearly at
the full) would make a clear night of it. It was unquestionably clearer
overhead, and the waves ran smoother, as if the sea were recovering its
temper, and Alister and I went below at 9 P.M. and turned into our
hammocks for a few hours' sleep, before taking our part in the
night-watch that lasts from 12 midnight till 4 A.M.

It is astonishing what a prompt narcotic the knowledge that you'll have
to be up again in an hour or two is. Alister and I wasted no time in
conversation. He told me the fall in the barometer was "by-ordinar"
(which I knew as well as he); and I