inary 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 fro