The words were meaningless to me, but I saw a form near me casting off a rope from a belaying pin over my head; there was a whizzing sound; I was thrown from the tub into the air with great violence, and I knew nothing further!
CHAPTER II
MY FIRST VOYAGE
When I returned to consciousness I could not at first imagine where I was, but the creaking and groaning of the ship as she labored in the heavy seaway and the abominable smell of bilge water soon brought me to a realizing sense of the fact that I was in my hammock in the steerage. After some mental effort I recollected that I had been thrown from the tub in which I had been sitting on deck, though how or why this had happened I could not understand. But I was too deathly seasick just then to care to follow out this train of thought, and I languidly dozed and wondered whether we should all go to the bottom together in this gale. I fancy I rather hoped we might thus end the matter with the least personal exertion, and that death under existing circumstances would prove a happy release.
But I was recalled to myself by the cook, coming softly up to my hammock with a shaded light and gazing down at me with evident interest.
“Robert,” said he, for the first and last time calling me by my full name, “is you come to yo’se’f, honey, sure enough?”
I moaned, as a reply.
“Oh, I reckon you’se all right now, Bob! De ole man says dere’s no bones broke, and ef dat is so I specs you come out first-rate soon’s yo’ stummick’s done settle down. But you certainly did have a mighty narrer squeak! Whatever put it into yo’ head, boy, to squat down into dat topsail halyard tub? It’s a clean wonder you didn’t get carried chock up to de main-top! Well, I don’t reckon you ever try dat seat again in a hurry. Now, honey, you drink dis ’ere pot of cabin tea, and den go to sleep, and by ter-morrow you’ll be as bright as a button.”
Any one who remembers a first voyage can imagine what I suffered in that abominable hole, alone and uncared for, save for the friendly ministrations of that poor negro cook, during the next three days. I really believe I should have died from mere exhaustion if it had not been for the little delicacies he smuggled down to me. But fortunately there is an end to seasickness, and on the third day the captain condescended to remember that I was on board, and that he had not seen me since he had examined me after my involuntary feat of ground and lofty tumbling. So down he came into the steerage, and by his order I was carried up on deck into the pure, fresh air, where I soon rallied; and before another day I was myself again, or nearly so, at any rate.
During my illness the ship had been prepared for sea by work that is always done by the crew the first few days out from port. This consists in securing the anchors in board, lashing the spare spars on deck, and clearing away all rubbish that has accumulated in port. Then there is “chafing gear” to be put on aloft and a thousand odd jobs to be done that no one but a sailor can understand, all of them very necessary on a long voyage, however.