A fresh little nor’-wester! I groaned in agony, and rolled about in my berth, thinking that if that was only a fresh little nor’-wester, what a fearful thing a _stale big_ nor’-wester would be! Next morning at daylight the steward came to my berth and asked me if I could “eat something?” Eat! Whew? Ugh! The very thought came near bringing on a relapse. “No, no, no!” I shuddered; and buried my face in my bunk. About ten o’clock he passed through the cabin, and I asked him if we were “out of sight o’ land?” “Out o’ sight?” he returned. “Yes, and have been for ten hours!” I felt somewhat better—in fact, a good deal better than during the terrible night just passed—and I determined to make my way to the deck to view a scene that had never before blessed my eyes. The wind had abated, but the waves ran high, and the vessel was still rolling considerably. Feeling light-headed and queer, I got out of my berth, grasping something all the time to keep from being spilled out into the cabin, got my crutch, left my state-room, and began to move toward the companion-way. By hugging the wall, grasping state-room door-knobs, and the like, I reached the foot of the staircase without falling, and looking up—the hatch being open—I saw the blue sky staggering about overhead. Holding firmly to a polished brass railing, I ascended to the deck and took a seat on the companion-hatch. Before me and all around me was the long wished-for sight. Our ship, the dark-green sea, the sun, the clear blue sky and a few wild sea-birds flitting about, were all that the eye could find to rest on. The sea and sky met on all sides, forming a grand and mighty circle around us. I remember remarking to myself, in my enthusiasm, that to see such a sight as this, was “worth risking a fellow’s life!” To do “old ocean” justice, I must say that there is nothing in the world more delightful than to be at sea a little while in mild weather; but when a gale is blowing, as I have since seen it, the ship going to pieces every hour, and the waves foaming, and snarling, and gnashing their teeth, as it were, in their impatience to get you and strangle you; then you naturally wish there wasn’t such a thing as a sea in the world; or that your lot had been cast in the “new world,” where “there was no more sea.” (Revelations xxi. 1.) On Monday we came in sight of Cape Cod, and I thought we should never get round it. Those who have noticed Cape Cod on the map have no doubt observed that it is shaped like a human foot; and we went gliding along near its sole, traveling from heel to toe. For hours, I was every moment expecting to go “round the point,” which I imagined I could see all the time a little way ahead: but it kept receding all the while, like an _ignis fatuus_, till I began to fancy that the foot belonged to some great giant, who was bending his knee, and drawing it back stealthily, in order to straighten it out again and give us a kick. CHAPTER X.