I watched our little ship bowing in pursuit of the tug; she curtseyed her white cloths to the moon, and the brine flashed at her bows at every plunge, and went away in a wide, rich race astern, for there was the churning of the paddles in it too.
But soon I was overcome by nausea once more, the magic of the fresh air failed me, and, yielding now to Mrs. Burke's entreaty, I suffered her to carry me to my cabin.
After this for the next four or five days I was so miserably ill that I lay as one in a fit or swoon, scarcely sensible of more, and therefore remembering but little more, than that Mrs. Burke was hour after hour in my cabin, sleeping beside me on a mattress during the night, and watching over me throughout that distressing time with touching and unwearied devotion. Mr. Owen was too ill to visit me; but what could he have done? Did he cure his own nausea? I think he knew of no physic for mine.
Indeed we met with very heavy weather in the Channel. The wind shifted shortly after the tug had let go of the ship and blew a moderate breeze out of the south-east, but in the morning the breeze freshened into a gale; a head sea ran strong, short, and angry; the captain drove the vessel along under shortened canvas, with sobbing decks and spray-clouded bows as I learnt; but to me, inexperienced as I was, her behaviour seemed frightfully wild and dangerous. I sometimes thought she was going to pieces. My cabin was aft, the machinery of the helm was nearly overhead, and the noise of it when she plunged her counter into the foam, and the rudder received the blow of some immense volume of rushing brine, sent shock after shock through the planks, and through me as I lay in my bunk.
But the stupor of sea-sickness was upon me, I had no fear; had the ship actually gone to pieces I do not think I could or should have opened my mouth to cry out. All that I asked for was death, and I was so sick even unto that state that I cannot remember I once wished myself at home, or thought for an instant of my father or Mr. Moore.
But on the fifth day I was well enough to sit up and partake of a little cold fowl and wine, and next day I was able to go on deck.
By this time we were clear of the English Channel, and I looked around me at the great ocean, swelling in long lines of rich sparkling blue under the high morning sun. Far away, blue in the air, were some leaning shafts of ships, and at the distance of a quarter of a mile a large steamer was passing, steering the same road as ourselves.
Weak as I was after my long confinement below, dazzled and confused too by the splendour of the morning, and the novelty and wonder of that windy scene of our bowing ship, clothed in canvas, gleaming like silk to the trucks, I could not but pause with a start of admiration when my sight went to that steamer. Captain Burke, seeing me as I leaned on his wife's arm, crossed the deck, and after some commonplaces of genial greeting told me that yonder vessel was a French man-of-war. She was round sterned with portholes for guns there, and two white lines full of gun-ports ran the length of her tall, shapely sides. She was ship-rigged, and lifted a lustrous fabric of square canvas and delicate cordage to the soft blue skies, a wide space of whose field the gilded balls of her trucks traced as she rolled heavily but with majesty, crushing the water at her bows to the impulse of her sails and propeller into a heap of splendid whiteness, like to the foam at the foot of some giant cataract. She was the noblest sea-piece I had ever beheld: the tricolour was at her gaff-end, a blue vein of smoke, filtering from a short black funnel, scarcely tarnished the azure over the horizon betwixt her fore and main masts; a great gilt eagle was perched with outstretched wings under her bowsprit, and seemed to be poised for a soaring flight as though affrighted by the roar of spume beneath; her decks were a blaze of light and colour when she rolled them towards us, with the sparkle of uniforms, the flash of sun-stars in bright metal, and gleams breaking from I know not whence, like sudden flames from artillery.
'I think I see her in charge of an English lieutenant,' said Captain Burke, 'making a straight course for Portsmouth. They have built good ships for us and will build again.'