Meanwhile, the passengers below, having been reassured by the captain, were making what breakfast they could off the rolls, tea, and rashers of ham which clattered about the table, and tumbled into their laps. The trays swung wildly from the deck, and it demanded great vigilance and close attention to their convulsive movements to repossess oneself of the cup or plate one placed upon them for safety. The negro steward shambled round the table, halting every moment to make a grasp at anything that came in his road, to steady himself. Now and again you heard the smash of crockery. Some conversation was attempted; and the General invited Mr. Holland to go up on deck and witness a scene which would probably exceed in majesty Niagara Falls; but Mr. Holland said he would wait until the vessel was steadier. Mr. St. Aubyn had changed his clothes and sat holding on to the table, looking the part of fear infinitely better than he could hope to impersonate it before the footlights. The ladies remained in their cabins. Mrs. Ashton, overcome with sickness and the fear of drowning, was driving her maid distracted with orders, which it was out of the poor wretch’s power to execute. In truth, the maid’s legs were perfectly useless to her, which Mrs. Ashton, lying on her back, refused to understand. Cries were repeatedly coming from the direction of her cabin for “Harry! Harry!” which received no attention, owing to Harry’s--in other words, to Mr. Ashton’s--utter incapacity to move a step without being flung upon the deck. A somewhat different scene was presented by the interior of the forecastle, where both watches were having breakfast. Men holding tin pannikins stepped easily round to the galley, where the cook was dispensing a milkless, sugarless black fluid called tea, and retreated into the twilight of the forecastle, carrying the steaming beverage. There sat the sailors, some swinging in hammocks with their legs dangling down, some on sea-chests, some on canvas bags, drinking from pannikins, swallowing lumps of biscuit hard as iron, or hacking with the knives they wore in their belts at bits of cold pork or beef, floating in vinegar, in tin dishes held between their knees; some smoking, some making ready to “turn in,” and all jabbering away as gaily as if they were comfortably seated in a Liverpool or Poplar singing-house--the mariner’s earthly paradise--and each with his Sue or his Betsey at his side. Here, more than in any other part of the ship, you felt her motion--the mighty lifting of her bows, and the long sweeping fall as she pitched nose under, while the heavy seas boomed against her outside as though at any moment the timbers must dispart and the green waves rush in.