Charley did not open his eyes again till morning. When he did open them he was feeling much better. He sat up, and decided that he was going to be all right. The ship was still pitching up and down, and was out of sight of land. The deck was littered with sick people lying in all postures, and some cattle that had been taken aboard at New Orleans, for beef, were lowing wretchedly as if they, too, were sick. No doubt they were. There was not much difficulty in getting a seat at breakfast this morning, for some of the passengers who had come down from the North were ill a second time. When Charley was picking his way to the dining cabin he stumbled on somebody, and looking down he beheld the long-nosed man. But the long-nosed man did not even notice that he was being stepped on. Charley chuckled. Mr. Jacobs in such shape need not be feared. That day they were not interfered with, in their possession of the boat. Charley had the fun of sleeping on its canvas covering, that night, where, all alone, he swung delightfully as in a great cradle, while the stars shone down upon him, and the spray from the paddle wheels occasionally drifted across his face. His father and Mr. Grigsby seemed to prefer the deck, against the rail. The voyage down to the Isthmus was rated at seven days from New Orleans. By the third day most of the sea-sick passengers had recovered, and everybody settled to enjoy themselves. A number of gamblers and drinkers were aboard; these kept to the main cabin, where they sat at cards, robbing whomsoever they might, or stood at the bar and guzzled quantities of liquor. On the decks the main pastime was reading California travels like Fremont's explorations, or Richard Dana's splendid "Two Years Before the Mast"--which Charley knew almost by heart; or in speculating on "How much gold can I dig in a day?" That was the favorite question: "How much gold do you suppose a fellow can dig in a day?" The calculations ran all the way from $100 to $10,000. An awning was stretched over the upper deck, for shade; and as the _Georgia_ sped out of the Gulf and headed south for the Yucatan Channel under the Tropic of Cancer, between Cuba and Yucatan, the shade felt mighty good. A number of passengers got out their white suits of linen or cotton; but the majority of the Forty-niners stuck to their flannel shirts and coarse trousers and boots. The third evening they crossed the Tropic of Cancer, and by night were entering the Yucatan Channel, which led to the famous Caribbean Sea where pirates used to lurk. The long-nosed man and his partners had not again bothered Charley and his two partners. They had kept below, most of the time, in the main cabin, with other roisterers, and it began to look as if they had decided to let the Adams party alone.