Chapter 3.LXXXV.

Now hang it! quoth I, as I look'd towards the French coast—a man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad—and I never gave a peep into Rochester church, or took notice of the dock of Chatham, or visited St. Thomas at Canterbury, though they all three laid in my way—

—But mine, indeed, is a particular case—

So without arguing the matter further with Thomas o'Becket, or any one else—I skip'd into the boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, and scudded away like the wind.

Pray, captain, quoth I, as I was going down into the cabin, is a man never overtaken by Death in this passage?

Why, there is not time for a man to be sick in it, replied he—What a cursed lyar! for I am sick as a horse, quoth I, already—what a brain!—upside down!—hey-day! the cells are broke loose one into another, and the blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the fix'd and volatile salts, are all jumbled into one mass—good G..! every thing turns round in it like a thousand whirlpools—I'd give a shilling to know if I shan't write the clearer for it—

Sick! sick! sick! sick—!

—When shall we get to land? captain—they have hearts like stones—O I am deadly sick!—reach me that thing, boy—'tis the most discomfiting sickness—I wish I was at the bottom—Madam! how is it with you? Undone! undone! un...—O! undone! sir—What the first time?—No, 'tis the second, third, sixth, tenth time, sir,—hey-day!—what a trampling over head!—hollo! cabin boy! what's the matter?

The wind chopp'd about! s'Death—then I shall meet him full in the face.

What luck!—'tis chopp'd about again, master—O the devil chop it—

Captain, quoth she, for heaven's sake, let us get ashore.

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