the sea got up, and, close-hauled, the little schooner
was soon ploughing her way through the foaming waves. My long service
in the cutter made me perfectly at home; but Dicky Sharpe, who had never
been in a small craft in his life, was very soon done up. He threw
himself down on a locker in the little cabin aft, looking the very
picture of misery.

"Oh! D'Arcy, my dear fellow, do have the kindness to heave me
overboard," he groaned out. "I can be of no further use to any one in
this world, and it would be a charity to put me out of it. It would,
indeed, I assure you."

"Oh, nonsense, Sharpe," I answered. "You are speaking gross folly: only
your sea-sickness excuses you."

"Now, don't scold me, Neil,--don't," he replied. "If you felt as I do,
you would not be inclined to be very sensible."

"Well, then, get up, and be a man," said I. "If you give in like that,
and fancy yourself dying, and all sorts of things, you deserve to be
thrown overboard; though I'm not the person going to do it."

"All hands shorten sail!" sung out Adam Stallman, who had charge of the
deck.

I sprang up the companion-ladder, followed by Dicky, and from that
moment he forgot all about his sea-sickness.

We soon got the little craft under snug canvas, and time it was to do
so; for, as man-of-war's men often do small craft, we had been treating
her like a big ship, and carrying on till the last moment. Never had
the _Thisbe_ been shoved through the water, probably, at the rate we had
lately been going; but more haste the worst speed, as we ran a great
chance of proving to our cost, for we were very near carrying the masts
over the sides, or making the small craft turn the turtle.

For two days we beat up against the gale, not one of us keeping a dry
thread on our backs; but after forty-eight hours of a good honest blow,
the wind seemed to have done enough for the present, and turning into a
light baffling breeze, left us to make an easy, though slow, passage
across the blue calm sea. This sort of weather continued till we made
the mountainous and wild-looking coast of the island of Cephalonia. We
ran in close along shore, as there are no rocks to bring up a vessel;
and, standing up a deep bay on the western side, with Guardiana, or
Lighthouse Island, on the north, dropped our anchor off Argostoli, the
chief town. Most of the people were ordered to keep quiet below, while
Mr Vernon, in plain clothes, went on shore in the dinghy