The Story of a Bad Boy | Page 7

to put his fork to his
mouth or into his eye. The tumblers and wineglasses, stuck in a rack
over the table, kept clinking and clinking; and the cabin lamp,
suspended by four gilt chains from the ceiling, swayed to and fro
crazily. Now the floor seemed to rise, and now it seemed to sink under
one's feet like a feather-bed.
There were not more than a dozen passengers on board, including
ourselves; and all of these, excepting a bald-headed old gentleman-a
retired sea-captain-disappeared into their staterooms at an early hour of
the evening.
After supper was cleared away, my father and the elderly gentleman,
whose name was Captain Truck, played at checkers; and I amused
myself for a while by watching the trouble they had in keeping the men
in the proper places. just at the most exciting point of the game, the
ship would careen, and down would go the white checkers pell-mell
among the black. Then my father laughed, but Captain Truck would
grow very angry, and vow that he would have won the game in a move
or two more, if the confounded old chicken-coop-that's what he called
the ship-hadn't lurched.
"I-I think I will go to bed now, please," I said, laying my band on my
father's knee, and feeling exceedingly queer.

It was high time, for the Typhoon was plunging about in the most
alarming fashion. I was speedily tucked away in the upper berth, where
I felt a trifle more easy at first. My clothes were placed on a narrow
shelf at my feet, and it was a great comfort to me to know that my
pistol was so handy, for I made no doubt we should fall in with Pirates
before many hours. This is the last thing I remember with any
distinctness. At midnight, as I was afterwards told, we were struck by a
gale which never left us until we came in sight of the Massachusetts
coast.
For days and days I had no sensible idea of what was going on around
me. That we were being hurled somewhere upside-down, and that I
didn't like it, was about all I knew. I have, indeed, a vague impression
that my father used to climb up to the berth and call me his "Ancient
Mariner," bidding me cheer up. But the Ancient Mariner was far from
cheering up, if I recollect rightly; and I don't believe that venerable
navigator would have cared much if it had been announced to him,
through a speaking-trumpet, that "a low, black, suspicious craft, with
raking masts, was rapidly bearing down upon us!"
In fact, one morning, I thought that such was the case, for bang! went
the big cannon I had noticed in the bow of the ship when we came on
board, and which had suggested to me the idea of Pirates. Bang! went
the gun again in a few seconds. I made a feeble effort to get at my
trousers-pocket! But the Typhoon was only saluting Cape Cod-the first
land sighted by vessels approaching the coast from a southerly
direction.
The vessel had ceased to roll, and my sea-sickness passed away as
rapidly as it came. I was all right now, "only a little shaky in my
timbers and a little blue about the gills," as Captain Truck remarked to
my mother, who, like myself, had been confined to the state-room
during the passage.
At Cape Cod the wind parted company with us without saying as much
as "Excuse me"; so we were nearly two days in making the run which
in favorable weather is usually accomplished in seven hours. That's
what the pilot said.

I was able to go about the ship now, and I lost no time in cultivating the
acquaintance of the sailor with the green-haired lady on his arm. I
found him in the forecastle-a sort of cellar in the front part of the vessel.
He was an agreeable sailor, as I had expected, and we became the best
of friends in five minutes.
He had been all over the world two or three times, and knew no end of
stories. According to his own account, he must have been shipwrecked
at least twice a year ever since his birth. He had served under Decatur
when that gallant officer peppered the Algerines and made them
promise not to sell their prisoners of war into slavery; he had worked a
gun at the bombardment of Vera Cruz in the Mexican War, and he had
been on Alexander Selkirk's Island more than once. There were very
few things he hadn't done in a seafaring way.
"I suppose, sir," I remarked, "that your name isn't Typhoon?"
"Why, Lord love ye, lad, my name's Benjamin Watson, of Nantucket.
But I'm a true blue Typhooner," he added,