John went to his stateroom and, falling into his berth, wept. He may be called weak, but he was not. John had braved too many dangers and undergone too many hardships to be termed weak. His mind was filled with his wife and children. The face of his sleeping baby, whose warm, tender arms had been so often entwined about his neck, lingered in his mind. When the dinner hour came he was not hungry, so he remained in his cabin. The vessel had gained the open sea by nightfall and was bowling along at a three-knot rate under full spread of canvas and fair wind. He went to supper, though little inclined to eat, and during the night was awakened with a load heavier than grindstones on his stomach. "Surely I will die," he groaned, as each heaving billow seemed to torture his poor stomach. He rose at dawn and found himself unable to stand. The sea was rough, and the ship was tossing and reeling like a drunken man. John found himself unable to lie down or sit up. He spent the day in rolling alternately in his berth or on the floor, groaning, "Surely I will die." The purser came and laughed at his distress, assuring him that he would survive. Next day he felt better and crawled out upon the deck. The sea still ran high, though the sky was clear, and the sun shone on the wildly agitated sea. He saw a wretch as miserable as himself crouching under a hencoop and holding both hands upon his tortured stomach. John Stevens paused for a moment at the rail, gasping with seasickness. "Say, neighbor, are you having a hard time?" asked the seasick but cheerful individual under the hencoop. "My head hurts," John gasped. "Verily, I ache all over," returned the new acquaintance under the hencoop. At this moment the cabin door was thrown suddenly and unceremoniously open, and a man past middle age darted forward as if he had been shot out of a cannon and went sprawling upon the deck, howling as he did so: "Good morrow, stranger!" John was not astonished at the sudden appearance of the man, but was rather alarmed at the violence of his fall. He ran to him and assisted him to rise. "Are you injured?" he asked. "Nay, nay; the fall was not violent." The man under the hencoop, who had been a disinterested spectator, took occasion to remark: "Marry! my friend, I wish it were I who had taken such a tumble; surely it would have crushed the stones in my stomach." "I am not sick," the new-comer answered, rising to his feet. "I was thrown by the sudden lurch of the ship; but it will soon be over." "I trust so," groaned the seasick man by the hencoop. "But the sea runs high," the old man said, "let us go in."