‘If this wind holds,’ said Captain Regnier, ‘it will be the deluge before Toulon. A thousand thunders! To think that it should come on to storm dead ahead! What virtue is there in patience when there is no end to waiting?’ ‘Why not sail the ship to a convenient port,’ said Alphonse, ‘and wait there in comfort and serenity until the weather changes?’ ‘Go! you are a sot,’ responded Captain Regnier, scowling at him. The motion was so excessive that it pained me to sit upright. I spoke to Alphonse, who addressed his uncle, and the captain, going to my berth, brought the mattress from the sleeping shelf, and placed it on one of the chests or lockers on what is called the ‘lee side’--that is, on the depressed side of the vessel--and when he had fetched the bolster I lay down. The afternoon slowly passed away. The skylight was shrouded with wet, and the shadow of the storm-coloured sky was upon it, and in the cabin it was so gloomy that Alphonse told the lad who waited at table to light the lamp. I was not sea-sick, but the swift risings and fallings of the brig gave me a dreadful headache, and so dimmed my sight that I could scarcely see. You who read this may very well know the sea as it is to be experienced in large ships. You may have rolled and plunged over mountainous waves in a steam-vessel of vast bulk, whose cabin is radiant with mirrors and lamps of polished metal, and with furniture as sumptuous as that of the drawing-rooms of a palace! You have had a luxurious berth to withdraw to, attentive stewards or stewardesses to minister to you, and all the while you have been comforted with a sense of incessant progress, with the assurance of the pulse in everything that you touch, in everything that you feel, that the noble engines are magnificently doing their work, and ruthlessly forcing the crushing and shearing stem of the powerful metal structure along the path that leads to your destination. But exchange such a ship as this for a brig of small burthen; exchange the brilliant interior of the great ship for the dingy, snuff-coloured living-room of a little brig with scarcely light to see by, and with the air full of the thunder of the warring without. Often the lamp swung so violently under the beam from which it dangled that I languidly watched to see it extinguish its own flame against the upper decks. There was a sickening sound of sobbing waters over my head, and there were many furious discharges of spray or wet upon the planks, the noise of which was like the abrupt fall of a terrible hailstorm liberated from the black breast of a tropical electric cloud.