eed.

So things went on till midnight, when the men at the wheel were
relieved, as well as the look-out forward, and the port watch came on
deck; while, the starbowlines going below, Mr Mackay took the place of
the second mate as the officer on duty. Tom Jerrold, too, lugged out
Sam Weeks and made him put in an appearance, much against his will; but
nothing subsequently occurred to vary the monotony of the life on board
or interfere with the vessel's progress, for, although it was blowing
pretty nearly "half a gale," as sailors say, we "made a fair wind of
it"--keeping steadily on our course, south-west by west, and getting
more and more out into the Atlantic with each mile of the seething water
the Silver Queen spurned with her forefoot and left eddying behind her.

The wind, somehow or other, seemed to get into my head, like a glass of
champagne I had on Christmas-day when father and all of us went to
Westham Hall and dined with the squire. I can't express how jolly it
made me feel--the wind I mean, not the champagne; for it was as much as
I could do to refrain from shouting out aloud in my exultation, as it
blew in my face and tossed my hair about, pressing against my body with
such force that I had to hold on by both hands to the weather bulwarks
to keep my feet, as I gazed out over the side at the magnificent scene
around me--the storm-tossed sea, one mass of foam; the grand blue vault
of heaven above, now partially lit by the late rising moon and twinkling
stars, that were occasionally obscured by scraps of drifting clouds and
flying scud; and, all the while, the noble ship tearing along, a thing
of beauty and of life, mastering the elements and glorying in the fight,
with the hum of the gale in the sails and its shrieking whistle through
the rigging, and the ever-murmuring voices of the waters, all filling
the air around as they sang the dirge of the deep!

"You seem to like it, youngster," observed Mr Mackay, stopping his
quarter-deck walk as he caught sight of my face in the moonlight and
noticed it's joyous glow, reflecting the emotions of my mind. "You look
a regular stormy petrel, and seem as if you wanted to spread your wings
and fly."

"I only wish I could, sir," I cried, laughing at his likening me to a
"Mother Carey's chicken," as the petrel is familiarly termed, a number
of them then hovering about the ship astern. "I feel half a bird
already, the wind makes me so jolly."

Mr Mackay quietly smi