on, he put her right before it, though at the expense
of losing a good deal of ground, as it made us go four points out of our
course. Papa, who was on deck, said it was most magnificent to hear the
fierce wind tearing past the vessel, and to see the ship not swaying in
the least one way or another, but driving forwards with the masts
perpendicular, as if irresistibly impelled through the water, without
appearing to feel the waves. But alas, alas, this absence of motion,
which was a paradise to me, lasted but some twenty minutes, while the
fury of the blast continued. We ran before the gale for the next four
hours, when it sufficiently moderated to enable us to resume our proper
course.

The gale continued, however, till four next morning, and such a night I
never passed. The doctor said, neither he nor any officer in the ship
could sleep, and next morning the poor stewardess and our peculiar cabin
boy mournfully deplored their fate, the former being forced to confess
that, though for years accustomed to the sea, she had been desperately
sick. In fact no one had ever known the vessel to roll before as she did
this night, and the sounds were horrible. The effect of one sea, in
particular, striking the ship was appalling, from the perfect stillness
which followed it. The vessel seemed quite to stagger under the blow and
to be paralysed by it, so that several seconds must have elapsed before
the heavy rolling recommenced. This, and the creaking and groaning of
the vessel, had something solemn about it; but some minor sounds were
neither so grand nor so philosophically borne by either Papa or myself.
One of the most persevering of these arose from my carelessness in
having forgotten to bolt the door of a cupboard which I made use of, in
our cabin, the consequence of which was that, with every lurch of the
vessel, the door gave a violent slam, and our lamp having been put out
at midnight, as it invariably was, we were in total darkness, and
without the means of ascertaining whether the irritating noise
proceeded, as we suspected, from the cupboard door, or from one of the
doors having been left open in the passage adjoining our cabin. It would
have been dangerous to have got up in the dark, and with a violent
lurching of the vessel, to discover the real cause of this wearisome
noise. I had a strong feeling of self-reproach in my own mind at having
brought such a calamity on poor Papa, when it could have been avoided if
I had