“Can’t do a thing,” replied Mr. Willett. “Perhaps he may not be so bad as he was on the trip around Cape Hatteras.”
“I trust not,” returned Oliver. “I haven’t been seasick myself, but I imagine it’s something awful.”
“It is,” responded the purser. “Get it real bad and you won’t care whether you live or not. I have followed the sea for twelve years, but once in a while my stomach goes back on me even yet.”
“Why, I thought sailors never got sick!”
“That’s a big mistake. You may be a sailor all your life and get it just as bad as if it were your first voyage. You can thank your stars that you are not one of the seasick kind.”
“Yes; I am lucky that way.”
Poor Gus lay in the cabin all that afternoon and all night. In the morning he felt better, however, and though rather weak, managed to eat a little breakfast.
“Now I hope I’m over it for good,” he said. “If I am not I’ll just jump overboard, that’s what I’ll do.”
“And make food for the sharks,” laughed Mr. Whyland. “Just look out there at the ferocious fellows moving around. That one would just make about three mouthfuls of you.”