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we had grown a little sea-sick,--just the slightest feeling of nausea. Kit shuts his book, rests his arm on the table, and leans his head on it.
"You sick?" demands Raed.
"Oh, no! not much; just a little squeamish."
Presently Wade lies down on his mattress, and I immediately ask,--
"Much sick, Wade?" To which he promptly replies,--
"Oh, no! squeamish a little; that's all."
By and by the skipper looks down to inquire, "Sick here, anybody?" To which we all answer at once,--
"Oh, no! only a bit squeamish."'
Squeamish was the word for it till near night, when we seemed suddenly to rally from it, though the motion continued the same; but the wind had veered to the south, and almost wholly lulled. We slept pretty well that night; but the next forenoon the nausea returned, and stuck by us all day. Every one who has been to sea knows how such a day passes. We had expected it, however, and bore it as lightly as possible.
... On the third morning out we found it raining, with the wind north-east. The schooner was kept as near it as possible, making about three knots an hour. The wind increased during the forenoon. By eleven o'clock there was a smart gale on. The rain drove fiercely. We grew sick enough.
"This is worse than the 'poison spring' at Katahdin!" groaned Kit.
The skipper came down.
"Is it a big gale?" Raed managed to ask.
"Just an ordinary north-easter."
"Well, then, I never wish to meet an extraordinary one!" gasped Wade.
The captain mixed us some brandy and water from his own private supply, which we took (as a medicine). But it wouldn't stay down: nothing would stay down. Our stomachs refused to bear the weight of any thing. Night came on: a wretched night it was for us. "The Curlew" floundered on. The view on deck was doubtless grand; but we had neither the legs nor the disposition to get up.... Some time about midnight, a dozen of our six-pound shots, which had been sewed up in a coarse sack and thrown under the table-shelf, by their continued motion worked a gap in the stitches; and three or four of them rolled out, and began a series of races from one end of the cabin to the other, smashing recklessly into the rick of chairs and camp-stools stowed in the forward end. Yet I do not believe one of us would have got up to secure those shot, even if we had known they would go through the side: I am pretty certain I should not. They went back and forth at will, till the captain, hearing the noise, came down, and after a great amount of dodging and grabbing, which might have been amusing at any other time, succeeded in capturing the truants and locking them up. The next day it was no better: wind and rain continued. We were not quite so sick, but even less disposed to get up, talk, or do anything, save to lie flat on our backs. We heard the sailors laughing at and abusing Palmleaf, who was dreadfully sick, and couldn't cook for them. Yet we felt not the least spark of sympathy for him: I do not think we should have interfered had they thrown him overboard. Wade called the poor wretch in, and ordered him, so sick he could scarcely stand, to make a bowl of gruel; and, when he undertook to explain how bad he felt, we all reviled him, and bade him go about his business.
"Nothin' like dis on de oyster schoonah," we heard him muttering as he staggered out.
... The storm had blown us off our course to the south-east considerably; and the next morning we tacked to the northward, and continued due north all that day and the next. It may have been fancy; but we all dated our recovery from this change of course. It had stopped raining, and the wind gradually went down.
Now that the nausea had passed off we were hungry as wolves, and kept Palmleaf, who was now quite recovered, busy cooking all day long.... The weather continued cloudy. The view from the damp deck was dull to the last degree. Capt. Mazard was in considerable doubt as to our latitude. Not a glimpse of the sun had he been able to catch for five days; and during this time we had been sailing sometimes very fast, then scarcely making way in the teeth of the strong north-easter. To the north and north-east the fog banks hung low on the sea. So light was the wind, that the sails scarcely filled. The schooner seemed merely to drift.... Toward night we entered among the fog-banks. The whole face of the sea steamed like a boiling kettle. The mist rose thin and gauze-like. We could scarcely see the length