, partly because he
was annoyed with Davey for bringing him on board. The first words he
addressed to him were--

"I say, you young lubber, you must pay your footing."

"I've got nothing to pay with. I brought no money with me."

"Well, then, you shall give us your gran' clothes. Them things isn't
fit for a cabin-boy."

Eric saw no remedy, and making a virtue of necessity, exchanged his good
cloth suit for a rough sailor's shirt and trousers, not over clean,
which the captain gave him. His own clothes were at once appropriated
by that functionary, who carried them into his cabin. But it was lucky
for Eric that, seeing how matters were likely to go, he had succeeded in
secreting his watch.

The day grew misty and comfortless, and towards evening the wind rose to
a storm. Eric soon began to feel very sick, and, to make his case
worse, could not endure either the taste, smell, or sight of such coarse
food as was contemptuously flung to him.

"Where am I to sleep?" he asked, "I feel very sick."

"Babby," said one of the sailors, "what's your name?"

"Williams."

"Well, Bill, you'll have to get over yer sickness pretty soon, _I_ can
tell ye. Here," he added, relenting a little, "Davey's slung ye a
hammock in the forecastle."

He showed the way, but poor Eric in the dark, and amid the lurches of
the vessel, could hardly steady himself down the companion-ladder, much
less get into his hammock. The man saw his condition, and, sulkily
enough, hove him into his place.

And there, in that swinging bed, where sleep seemed impossible, and in
which he was unpleasantly shaken about, when the ship rolled and pitched
through the dark, heaving, discoloured waves, and with dirty men
sleeping round him at night, until the atmosphere of the forecastle
became like poison, hopelessly and helplessly sick, and half-starved,
the boy lay for two days. The crew neglected him shamefully. It was
nobody's business to wait on him, and he could procure neither
sufficient food nor any water; they only brought him some grog to drink,
which in his weakness and sickness was nauseous to him as medicine.

"I say, you young cub down there," shouted the skipper to him from the
hatchway, "come up and swab this deck."

He got up, and after bruising himself severely, as he stumbled about to
find the ladder, made an effort to obey the command. But he staggered
from feebleness when he reached the deck, and had to grasp for some
fresh sup