oon, most of whom have been
already introduced to notice. If she had had, indeed, as proportionate
an amount of cargo as she had passengers it might have been all the
better for her seaworthiness. Instead of this, however, she was, by
far, too deep in the water, having a lot of deadweight amid-ships, in
the shape of agricultural implements and other hardware, which she was
taking out to Otago, that seriously interfered with her buoyancy, making
her dip to the waves instead of rising over them, and depriving her of
that spring and elasticity which a good ship should always have.

Now, she was groaning and creaking at every timber, as if in the last
throes of mortal agony; and the manner in which she rolled when she got
into the trough of the sea, between the intervals of the following
billows, would have dispelled any idea one might have possessed as to
her proper angle of stability, and made the observer feel inclined to
treat it as "a vanishing point."

Added to this, she pitched every now and then as if she were going to
dive into the depths of the ocean; and, when she rose again in
recovering herself, it seemed as if she were going down bodily by the
stern, the surge of the sea along the line of ports in the cabin bearing
out the illusion as it swelled up above her freeboard.

With the glass and crockeryware in the steward's cabin rattling, as if
in an earthquake, and trunks and portmanteaus banging from side to side
of the saloon, or floating up and down in the water that had accumulated
from the heavy sea that had washed down the companion when Mr Zachariah
Lathrope so gracefully made his rapid descent below, the place was a
picture of discomfort and disorder such as a painter would have been
powerless to depict and words would utterly fail to describe.

Kate and Florry Meldrum had retired to their berths, having experienced
a slight suspicion of squeamishness which the unwonted movements of the
vessel had brought about. They thought in such case that "discretion
was the better part of valour," especially as they felt no alarm as to
the safety of the ship, having perfect confidence that their father
would look after them if there was any danger; but Mrs Major Negus, on
the contrary, was firmly convinced that the _Nancy Bell_ was going to
the bottom. She sat in the captain's seat at the head of the cuddy
table, tightly clutching on to the sides to preserve her equilibrium at
each roll of the ship, loudly bewa