immie coasted across the deck, and
landed on his hands and knees against the gunwale. If he had persisted
in standing up he would have gone overboard. The women all shrieked
and remained in a tangled heap of chairs, and rugs, and petticoats,
waiting for the yacht to right herself, and for the men to come and
pick them up. But the yacht showed no intention of righting herself.
She continued to careen in the position of a cab going round
Piccadilly Circus on one wheel. The sailors were all running around
like ants on an ant-hill, and the captain was shouting orders, and
even lending a hand with the ropes himself. I don't know the nautical
terms, but they were taking down the middle sail--the mainsail, that's
it. It did not look dangerous, because the sun kept shining, and I
never thought of being frightened. I just clung to the mast, watching
the other people right themselves, and laughing, when suddenly
everything ceased to be funny. The decks of the _Hela_ took on a wavy
motion, and I blinked my eyes in order to see better, for everything
was getting very indistinct, and there were green spots on the sun.
Suddenly I realized that I was a long way from home, and that I was
even a long way from my state-room. I only had just about sense enough
left to remember that the mast was my very best friend and that I must
cling there.

After that, I remember that somebody came up behind me and pried my
hands loose from the mast.

The doctor's voice said, "Can you walk?"

I smiled feebly and said, "I used to know how." But evidently my
efforts were not highly successful, for he picked me up, white serge,
tar, green spots on the sun, and all, and carried me below, a limp and
humiliated bit of humanity.

Mrs. Jimmie and Commodore Strossi followed with more anxiety than the
occasion warranted.

Then Mrs. Jimmie sent the men away, and I felt pillows under my head,
and camphor under my nose, and hot-water bags about me; and I must
have gone to sleep or died, or something, for I don't remember
anything more until the next day.

They were very nice to me, for I was such a cheerful invalid. It
seemed to surprise them that I could even pretend to be happy. I knew
that it must be an uncommon gale from the way Commodore Strossi
studied the charts, and because even his wife, for whom the yacht was
named, was ill, and she had spent half her life on the sea. The poor
little French cabin-boy was ill, too, and went around, with a
Nile-gre