A regular gale was blowing now, and the schooner careened fearfully beneath it on her starboard side, while the bellying of that portion of the fore-and-aft foresail which had got loose aided in hurrying her faster out to sea.
The light of the coming day was spread in dull gray over the sky, imparting the same cold tint to the whitening waves. Land was still visible, but it seemed like a dark bank at the horizon. I supposed it to be about ten miles distant, but what part of the coast, or how far from Erlesmere, I knew not.
Now I began to be assailed by that illness, which terror and anxiety had hitherto but partially repressed—a violent sea-sickness in all its horror. Afraid of being washed from the deck over which the waves were breaking now, once more I crept in wretchedness below.
Before descending, I cast a despairing glance at the loosening sail which still caught the wind it was a source of increasing danger which dared not attempt to remedy, even had I strength to have done so, for the wet deck was now sloping like the roof of a house, and I would assuredly have fallen into the sea to leeward. After several feeble efforts, I succeeded in partially closing the companion hatch, for warmth and security, and descending, threw myself on the cabin floor, sick and despairing.
The lurching of the vessel, the closeness of the atmosphere, and general odor of the cabin, overpowered me at last; I became fearfully ill, and from being so, lapsed into unconsciousness, after enduring all the wretchedness induced by that ailment of the ocean. For the top of my head seemed about to fly off, its sides to be crushed in; there was a singing in my ears, an ache in my eyeballs; and then came that awful sinking of the pulses, of the body, of the soul itself, which thousands have endured in cases of aggravated sea-sickness, but none have been able to depict.
In short, after a paroxysm of illness and tears, I became totally unconscious of the peril and horror of my situation, and found a refuge in sleep.
CHAPTER V.
USELESS REGRETS.
I must have lain long thus. On recovering, I rose more stiff and more benumbed than ever, and with feeble steps ascended the companion ladder, and then a cry of despair escaped me.
The sky was clear and sunny, but whether with the light of a rising or a setting sun, I could not at first determine, morning and evening on the ocean being so much alike to an unpractised eye. Not a vestige of land was visible!