“A great big brute of some sort has come into my bunk; I wonder it hasn’t bitten me,” I answered.
“Why, I’ve got another here!” exclaimed Jim, who just then awoke. “What in the world is it?”
Horner laughed loudly.
“Why, they’re our ferrets,” he answered. “Didn’t you see them before?”
“No, and I never wish to see them again,” answered Jim, as he flung the creature down on the deck.
Horner then told us that the captain had taken a couple on board at Hull to kill the rats, and that although a hutch had been made for them the creatures always managed to get out at night for the sake of obtaining a warm berth, and that if we put them into their hutch they would be sure to find their way back again into his or Esdale’s bunks before they had been many minutes asleep.
The truth was the ferrets were more afraid of the rats than the rats were of them. We bore the annoyance for three nights more, and then, by the unanimous consent of our mess, we got Horner to carry them down into the hold, from which they never ascended, and we concluded that they either got drowned in the bilge water or were eaten up by the rats.
We had not been long at sea before a heavy gale sprang up, but as the wind was from the westward we were able to lay our course.
To Jim and me it mattered very little, although the waves were much higher than I had seen them in the North Sea, but poor Esdale suffered very much, and Horner’s conceit was taken down a good many pegs. Jim and I did our best to look after them, and to try to get them to eat something, but they could only swallow liquids.
“Oh, let me alone! Let me alone!” cried Horner.