“You’ll be all right long before we get in, Mr Holt,” he said. “Now, if you take my advice, you’ll go to sleep again.”
I did take it, and I must have slept for a long time. Once or twice I half woke, and it seemed to be night, for all was dark save for a faint light coming in through the closed portholes, and the lulling rocking movement and swish of the water soon sent me off again. Even the throb of the propeller was soothing in its regularity.
“You’ve had a good sleep, sir. Feel better this morning, sir?”
It was broad daylight, and the motion of the ship had changed to a very decided roll. I sat up in my bunk.
“Shall we be in soon, steward?” I asked, recognising that functionary.
“Be in soon? Why, hardly, sir,” he answered, looking puzzled. “We don’t touch nowhere.”
“No, I suppose not. But where are we now?”
“Well into the Bay.”
“The Bay! What Bay?”
“Bay o’ Biscay, sir,” he replied, looking as though he thought the effects of my buffeting had impaired my reasoning faculties.