“Ah! this is sad work for women and children!” said the honest tar, drawing a large tarpaulin over the mother and child. Blinded and drenched by the pelting of the pitiless shower, Flora crouched down in the bottom of the boat, in patient endurance of what might befal. The wind blew piercingly cold; and the spray of the huge billows which burst continually over them, enveloped the small craft in a feathery cloud, effectually concealing from her weary passengers the black waste of raging waters which roared around and beneath them. The poor infant was starving with hunger, and all Flora’s efforts to keep it quiet proved unavailing. The gentlemen were as sick and helpless as the baby, and nothing could well increase their wretchedness. They had now been ten hours at sea; and, not expecting the least detention from the non-arrival of the steamer, nothing in the way of refreshment had formed any part of their luggage. Those who had escaped the horrors of sea-sickness, of which Flora was one, were suffering from thirst, while the keen air had sharpened their appetites to a ravenous degree. In spite of their forlorn situation, Flora could not help being amused by the gay, careless manner, in which the crew of the boat contended with these difficulties. “Well, I’ll be blowed if I arn’t hungry!” cried Craigie, as he stood up in the boat, with his arms folded, and his nor’wester pulled over his eyes, to ward off the drenching rain. “Nothin’ would come amiss to me now, in the way of prog. I could digest a bit of the shark that swallowed Jonah, or pick a rib of the old prophet himself, without making a wry face.” “I wonder which would prove the tougher morsel of the two,” said Mr. Hawke, raising his languid head from the bench before him, and whose love of fun overcame the deadly pangs of sea-sickness. “A dish of good beefsteaks from the Crown Inn would be worth them both, friend,” said Adam Mansel, who, getting better of the sea-sickness, like Craigie, began to feel the pangs of hunger. “You may keep the dish, mister,” returned Craigie, laughing; “give me the grub.” “Ah, how bitter!” groaned James Hawke, raising himself up from the furled sail which had formed his bed, and yielding to the terrible nausea that oppressed him. “Ay, ay, my lad,” said an ancient mariner, on whose tanned face time and exposure to sun and storm had traced a thousand hieroglyphics; “nothing’s sweet that’s so contrary to natur’. Among the bitter things of life, there’s scarcely a worse than the one that now troubles you. Sick at sea,—well on shore; so there’s comfort for you!” “Cold comfort,” sighed the boy, as he again fell prostrate on the wet sail. A huge billow broke over the side of the boat, and deluged him with brine. He did not heed it, having again relapsed into his former insensible state. “The bucket aft,” shouted Palmer. “It’s wanted to bale the boat.”