Todd made up his mind to remain where he was, jammed up against the
cabin partition, until the ship should right itself sufficiently for him
to make another effort to reach his berth. After a few minutes he thought he would make the attempt. "Now," he said. "Now, surely, I can do it. I will try. How the wind
howls, to be sure, and how the waves dash against the ship's sides, as
though they would stave in her timbers; but all is well, no doubt. I
will try again." Very cautiously now Todd crept to his berth, and this time the winds and
the waves were kind enough only to move the ship so that he knocked his
head right and left a little, and managed then to scramble on to the
little inconvenient shelf, with its damp mattress that served for a bed. "Ah," said Todd, "and there are people who might, if they liked, stay on
land all their lives, and yet they pretend to prefer the sea. There's no
accounting for tastes." By dint of jerking it a little from under him, Todd propped the mattress
against the outer edge of the berth; so that provided the vessel did
lurch in that direction, it was not so likely to tumble him out, and
there he lay listening to the winds and the waves. "A storm in the Channel!" he muttered. "From what that beast of a
captain said, it appears we are to have one. Well, well, I have
weathered many a storm on land, and now I must put up with one at sea." At this moment, there was a tremendous bustle upon deck, and some orders
were issued that were quite unintelligible to Todd. There was, however,
a great flapping of canvas, and a rattling of chains. The Lively William was weathering the South Foreland, and just going to
do battle with half a gale of wind in the Channel. Up to this point, Todd had, with something approaching to resignation,
put up with the disagreeables about him; and upon the principle of the
song which states that--

    "When a man travels, he mustn't look queer,
    If he meets a few rubs that he does not meet here,"

he regarded his position with philosophy; but now there came over him a
dreadful sensation. A cold clammy dew burst out upon his face--all
strength fled from his limbs, and with a deep groan, Todd began to feel
the real horror of sea sickness. Nothing can be like sea sickness but death, and nothing can be like
death but sea sickness. Todd had never suffered from that calamity
before; and now that it came upon him, in all its aggravated horrors, he
could not believe that it was a mere passing indisposition, but
concluded that he must have been poisoned by the captain of the ship,
and that his last hour was come. And now Todd would fain have made a noise, and called for help. He would
have liked to fire one of his pistols in the face of that captain,
provided he could but have got him to the side of his berth; but he had
not strength left to utter a word above a whisper; and as for moving his
hand to his pockets to get out his fire-arms, he could not so much as
lift a finger. All Todd could do was to go on, and to get each moment worse and worse
with that awful sensation of sickness, which resembles the sickness of
the soul at parting from its mortal house, to which it had clung so
long. The wind howled upon the deck and through the cordage of the vessel--the
spray dashed over her bulwarks, and each moment the storm increased in
fury. CHAPTER CLXVIII. TODD GETS A WORLD OF MARITIME EXPERIENCE. The idea that he was poisoned grew upon Todd each moment, and to such a
man, it was truly terrific to think that he should come to so fearful an
end. "Help! Help!" he groaned; but after all, it was only a groan and not a
cry--not that that mattered; for if he had had the lungs of ten men all
concentrated in his own person, and had so been able to cry out with a
superhuman voice, it would have been most completely lost amid the roar
of the wind, and the wild dashing of the waves. The storm was certainly increasing. "Oh, this sickness!" groaned Todd. "Oh, dear--oh, dear!" At the moment that he was so bad that, in his want of experience of what
sea sickness really was, he thought every moment would be his last, he
heard some one coming down into the cabin, and one of the crew rolled
rather than walked into it. "Help!" said Todd; "oh, help!" "You go to the d--l!" said the man. "The captain is washed overboard,
and we are all going to the bottom, so I am one who likes to take a
little spirits with him to qualify the water that one may be obliged to
swallow. That's it. Steady, craft, steady." Practised as this man no doubt was in the art of keeping his footing
upon an undulating surface, the pitching of the ship was so tremendous,
that even he was thrown to the cabin floor with considerable violence,
and had no easy task to rise again. "No!" cried Todd, finding that positive fright lent him strength, "you
do not mean that?" "Mean what, you old sinner?" "That we shall be lost?" The man nodded, and having opened a little cupboard, he brought out a
little bladder of spirits, and placing it to his lips, he drank a large
quantity, while he held by the cupboard door to keep himself from
falling. "That will do," he said, as he dropped the bladder to the floor, and
then, after several unsuccessful efforts to do so, he scrambled upon
deck again. "I, too, will drink," said Todd; "oh, yes, I will drink. I feel that if
anything will give me strength to bear the horrors of the night, it will
be my old and well-tried friend, brandy." He cast his eyes upon the bladder of spirits that the sailor had thrown
to the floor. The spirit was slowly weltering out of the bladder, and
running in a stream across the cabin. As the odour of it saluted the
nose of Todd, he exclaimed,--

"It is brandy! I must and will have some!" It was all very well for Todd to say that he must and would have some of
the brandy, but the difficulty of getting at it was one by no means easy
to surmount. He recollected what a job he had to get into his berth
again upon the occasion that he had got out of it before, and he dreaded
to place himself in a similar predicament; yet he found the vessel was
more steady, although the wind had not at all abated. Yes, it certainly
was more steady. "I will try," said Todd. "I must have some." With a determination, then, to get at the choice liquor, which was
wasting what Todd considered its sweetness upon the cabin floor, he slid
out of his little bed-place, and the ship giving a sudden roll in a
trough of the sea, he fell sprawling to the floor. "Oh, I shall be killed!" he yelled. "This frightful voyage will be the
death of me! It is too terrible! Oh, Heaven! It is much too terrible! Help!--mercy!" Todd lay upon his back on the cabin floor, with his arms and legs
stretched out like a gigantic St. Andrew's cross. Something touched his
hand; it was the bladder of brandy, that, as the ship rolled, had moved
towards him. He clutched it with a feeling of despair, and brought it to
his lips.