"You had better go below, and change your things. Tell the steward to bring me my oilskins, out of my cabin. You had better keep below, until this rain has stopped."
Bob thought the advice was good; so he went down and got into dry clothes, and then lay down on the cabin sofa, to leeward--he could not have kept his place, on the other side. The rain was still falling so heavily, on deck, that it sounded like a waggon passing overhead; and mingled with this noise was the howl of the wind, and the swashing of the water against the ship's side. Gradually the motion of the vessel became more violent, and she quivered from bow to stern, as the waves struck her.
Although it was early in the afternoon, it became almost as dark as night in the cabin. The steward had brought him a glass of hot grog, as soon as he had changed his clothes and, in spite of the din, he presently fell off to sleep. When he woke the rain had ceased; but the uproar caused by the howling of the wind, the creaking of the spars, and the dashing of the waves was as loud as before.
He soon made his way up on deck, and found that a tremendous sea was running. The fore-topsail had been got off the ship, the weather sheets of the jib and fore-staysail hauled across, and the vessel was making comparatively little way through the water. She was, in fact--although Bob did not know it--lying to, under these sails and the spanker.
It all looked so terrible, to him, that he kept his place but a few minutes; and was then glad to return to the sofa, below. In a short time, the captain came down.
"How are you getting on, lad? All in the dark, eh?
"Steward, light the lamp, and bring me a tumbler of hot grog. Keep the water boiling; the other officers will be down, directly.
"Well, what do you think of it, young gentleman?"
"I don't like it, at all," Bob said. "I thought I should like to see a storm, but I never want to see one, again."
"I am not surprised at that," the captain said, with a laugh. "It is all very well to read about storms, but it is a very different thing to be caught in one."