In the course of the third week, Henry Harper began to buck up a bit. His first experience of the motions of a ship at sea had made him horribly unwell. As night after night he lay tossing and moaning as loudly as he dared in the stifling darkness between the boiler and the galley stairs, without a friend in the world and only an unspeakable fate to look forward to, he felt many times that he was going to die and could only hope the end would be easy. However, he had learned already that the act of death is not a simple matter if you have to compass it for yourself. Every morning found him limp as a rag, but always and ever alive. And then gradually he got the turn. Each day he grew a little stronger, a little bolder, so that by the end of the third week he had even begun to feel less afraid of the Chinaman. In the middle of the fourth week, he had a bit of real luck. And it came to him in the guise of an inspiration. It was merely that one night when the time came for turning into that stifling inferno which he still dreaded with all his soul, he literally took his courage in his hands. He spread Johnnie's overcoat in the farthest corner of the galley itself, made a pillow of the bundle that Mother had given him, and then without venturing a look in the direction of the Chinaman very quietly lay down and waited, with beating heart, for the worst. Strange to say, the worst never happened. For a long time he expected a boot in his ribs. Every nerve was braced to receive it. But the slow minutes passed and no boot came. All this time Sing sat on the bacon box, smoking solemnly, and taking an occasional sip of grog from his pannikin. And then suddenly Henry Harper went quite deliciously to sleep, and dreamed that he was in the West Indies, and had caught a real live parrot for Johnnie. It was a really wonderful sleep that he had. He did not wake once till four bells struck in the morning watch, the proper time for starting the duties of the day. These began with lighting the fire and filling the copper. He rose from his corner a new boy, and there was Sing lying peacefully in the middle of the floor, not taking notice of anyone. And the odd thing was that during the day Sing showed him no disfavor; and when night came and it was time once more to turn in, Henry Harper lay down again in the corner of the galley. There was now no need to await the arrival of the Chinaman's boot. XIII