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The third mate was very kind to me; told me there was no hurry; I was welcome to lie in my bunk till I felt equal to coming on deck.

“I was sick for a fortnight when I first went to sea,” I heard him say. “I was one of four apprentices. Those shipmates of mine were brutes, and the very first night we were out they hauled me from my hammock and ran me to the mizzen shrouds, up which they forced me to go, saying that the topgallant sail would be clewing up shortly, and I must be in the cross-trees in readiness to help furl it. A ratline carried away, and I fell through the rigging on to the deck. I broke no bones, but I lay senseless, which so terrified the young bullies that when I was taken to my hammock they never more offered to trouble me. I was ill for a fortnight, I say, and the memory of it makes me sorry for every youngster when he first comes to the life and is sea-sick.”

However, on the morning of the third day from our quitting Gravesend, though I was still very ill, I could stand no longer the miseries of my confinement to the cabin. Since I was bound to suffer, I thought it was better to feel wretched in the open air than amid the smells and noise and gloom of the midshipmen’s berth.