So saying, the officer went away down into the cabin. Hilbert did not know what was meant by getting pitched into the lee scuppers, and Rollo did not know what the lee quarter could be. He however determined to go in the direction that the man had indicated, and see if he could find the door. As for Hilbert, he said to Rollo that he was not afraid of the lee scuppers or any other scuppers, and he was going up on the promenade deck. There was an iron railing, he said, that he could cling to all the way. Rollo, in the mean time, went along the passage way, bracing his arms against the sides of it as he advanced. The ship was rolling over from side to side so excessively that he was borne with his whole weight first against one side of the passage way, and then against the other, so heavily that he was every moment obliged to stop and wait until the ship came up again before he could go on. At length he came into a small room with several doors opening from it. In the back side of this room was the compartment where the helmsman stood with his wheel. There were several men in this place with the helmsman, helping him to control the wheel. Rollo observed, too, that there were a number of large rockets put away in a sort of frame in the coil overhead. He went to one of the doors that was on the right-hand side of this room, and opened it a little way; but the wind and rain came in so violently that he thought he would go to the opposite side and try that door. This idea proved a very fortunate one, for, being now on the sheltered side of the ship, he could open the door and look out without exposing himself to the fury of the storm. He gazed for a time at the raging fury of the sea with a sentiment of profound admiration and awe. The surface of the ocean was covered with foam, and the waves were tossing themselves up in prodigious heaps; the crests, as fast as they were formed, being seized and hurled away by the wind in a mass of driving spray, which went scudding over the water like drifting snow in a wintry storm on land. After Rollo had looked upon this scene until he was satisfied, he shut the door, and returned along the passage way, intending to go down and give Jennie an account of his adventures. As he advanced toward the little compartment where the landing was, from the stairs, he heard a sound as of some one in distress, and on drawing near he found Hilbert coming in perfectly drenched with sea water. He was moaning and crying bitterly, and, as he staggered along, the water dripped from his clothes in streams. Rollo asked him what was the matter; but he could get no answer. Hilbert pressed on sullenly, crying and groaning as he went down to find his father. [Illustration]