and I didn't say any more about getting out. As
for Sam, he spent his time at the windows of the state-rooms
a-looking out. We could see a good way into the water--farther than
you would think--and we sometimes saw fishes, especially porpoises,
swimming about, most likely trying to find out what a ship was doing
hanging bows down under the water. What troubled Sam was that a
swordfish might come along and jab his sword through one of the
windows. In that case it would be all up, or rather down, with us.
Every now and then he'd sing out, 'Here comes one!' And then, just
as I'd give a jump, he'd say, 'No, it isn't; it's a porpoise.' I
thought from the first, and I think now, that it would have been a
great deal better for us if that boy hadn't been along. That night
there was a good deal of motion to the ship, and she swung about and
rose up and down more than she had done since we'd been left in her.
'There must be a big sea running on top,' said William Anderson,
'and if we were up there we'd be tossed about dreadful. Now the
motion down here is just as easy as a cradle; and, what's more, we
can't be sunk very deep, for if we were there wouldn't be any motion
at all.' About noon the next day we felt a sudden tremble and shake
run through the whole ship, and far down under us we heard a
rumbling and grinding that nearly scared me out of my wits. I first
thought we'd struck bottom; but William he said that couldn't be,
for it was just as light in the cabin as it had been, and if we'd
gone down it would have grown much darker, of course. The rumbling
stopped after a little while, and then it seemed to grow lighter
instead of darker; and Sam, who was looking up at the stern windows
over our heads, he sung out, 'Sky!' And, sure enough, we could see
the blue sky, as clear as daylight, through those windows! And then
the ship she turned herself on the slant, pretty much as she had
been when her forward compartment first took in water, and we found
ourselves standing on the cabin floor instead of the bulkhead. I was
near one of the open state-rooms, and as I looked in there was the
sunlight coming through the wet glass in the window, and more
cheerful than anything I ever saw before in this world. William
Anderson he just made one jump, and, unscrewing one of the
state-room windows, he jerked it open. We had thought the air inside
was good enough to last some time longer; but when that window was
open and the fresh air came rus