eck or something," I said.

Bickley crept to him and having looked, sang out:

"It's all right! He's only sea-sick. I thought it would come to that if
he drank so much tea."

"Sea-sick," I said faintly--"sea-sick?"

"That's all," said Bickley. "The nerves of the stomach acting on the
brain or vice-versa--that is, if Bastin has a brain," he added sotto
voce.

"Oh!" groaned the prostrate clergyman. "I wish that I were dead!"

"Don't trouble about that," answered Bickley. "I expect you soon will
be. Here, drink some whisky, you donkey."

Bastin sat up and obeyed, out of the bottle, for it was impossible to
pour anything into a glass, with results too dreadful to narrate.

"I call that a dirty trick," he said presently, in a feeble voice,
glowering at Bickley.

"I expect I shall have to play you a dirtier before long, for you are a
pretty bad case, old fellow."

As a matter of fact he had, for once Bastin had begun really we thought
that he was going to die. Somehow we got him into his cabin, which
opened off the saloon, and as he could drink nothing more, Bickley
managed to inject morphia or some other compound into him, which made
him insensible for a long while.

"He must be in a poor way," he said, "for the needle went more than a
quarter of an inch into him, and he never cried out or stirred. Couldn't
help it in that rolling."

But now I could hear the engines working, and I think that the bow
of the vessel was got head on to the seas, for instead of rolling we
pitched, or rather the ship stood first upon one end and then upon the
other. This continued for a while until the first burst of the cyclone
had gone by. Then suddenly the engines stopped; I suppose that they had
broken down, but I never learned, and we seemed to veer about, nearly
sinking in the process, and to run before the hurricane at terrific
speed.

"I wonder where we are going to?" I said to Bickley. "To the land of
sleep, Humphrey, I imagine," he replied in a more gentle voice than I
had often heard him use, adding: "Good-bye, old boy, we have been real
friends, haven't we, notwithstanding my peculiarities? I only wish that
I could think that there was anything in Bastin's views. But I can't, I
can't. It's good night for us poor creatures!"

Chapter VI. Land

At last the electric light really went out. I had looked at my watch
just before this happened and wound it up, which, Bickley remarked, was
superfluous and a waste of en