The wind was fair, and a favorable voyage was anticipated. Sail after sail was clapped on, and Captain Liddle walked up and down the deck with a beaming face and in a state of high satisfaction. Five of the passengers were below in the first agonies of sea-sickness. Four were on deck--the two friends, James Heartsease and Harry Wall, Stephen Homebush, and Rough-and-Ready. The friends had travelled too many thousands of miles upon the ocean to be troubled by sea-sickness now; they had struggled with and vanquished that fell enemy years ago. Rough-and-Ready was not the sort of man to give in; he treated sea-sickness as he treated every thing else that came to him in a threatening shape--he laughed in its face. Perhaps previous experience enabled him to do so with impunity. Stephen Homebush was not so fortunate. He had a large stock of bile, and (speaking after the manner of a well-known great man) when he had got rid of a great deal, he would have a great deal left. He certainly got rid of a great deal upon this occasion; and accustomed as he was to wrestle against yearnings of the flesh and terrible foes, this foe was too powerful for him, and this yearning of the flesh sent him into a deep pit of tribulation from which he saw no chance of escape. Some kind friend had advised him not to go below when he was attacked; and in accordance with that advice he remained on deck, possessed by a spirit so fiendish as not only to set at naught the pious exhortations of the worthy Stephen, but even to change words of piety into utterances that sounded very like anathemas. Even in the midst of his agony, he looked round for some one, as was his wont in his happier moods, upon whom to pour the vials of his spleen; for Stephen Homebush had this peculiar conviction with respect to himself. His invariable verdict when tribulation visited other persons was, that it was a just punishment--it was a visitation of the Lord. But there was no such acknowledgment regarding any vexation by which he was afflicted. In that case his opinion was, that he was suffering for the sins of others, and the conviction was to him a sufficient proof of his own worthiness and of the wickedness and unworthiness of every other person. He looked round for some one on whom to vent his spleen; but no person met his eye but Rough-and-Ready, whose merry face and cheerful manner were an additional sting to the miserable Stephen. Rough-and-Ready nodded encouragingly to the pale-faced Stephen, who was leaning against the bulwarks, and said cheerfully, and really from no ill-natured motive-- "You will be better by and by, Mr. Homebush. Besides, it will do you good." These last words were unfortunately chosen; for the afflicted Stephen--who had heard the discreditable stories attached to Rough-and-Ready, and who had already judged him as a sinner of the first magnitude--glared at the speaker, and said with difficulty, "Scoffer, sinner!"