"Lor' a mussy, me nebber get tings right nohow!" he would exclaim, setting to work again; and then, a sea would come floating in over the combings of the cabin bulkhead, tumbling him over and washing him aft amidst the debris, almost drowning the man before he could fish himself up again and set to his task anew. His toil, like that of Sisyphus, was ever being renewed when on the verge of completion. To me, however, all these little disagreeables seemed immensely jolly; so, whenever the captain or Mr Marline or Harry happened to get capsized in this way down in the cabin during the day, it sent me at once into fits of merriment, the fact of my being washed off my feet as well only adding to the enjoyment of the joke, for I could grin quite as much with my own head in the scuppers and my mouth full of water as I would when the others were similarly situated. "Bless the boy!" Captain Miles said. "He's a regular sailor. He laughs at everything." And so I did; especially one afternoon, when a sea coming in suddenly so jammed Mr Marline inside an arm-chair, whose seat had given way, that the watch had to be called below to extricate him. The mate took the matter with great good-humour, I may add, only saying to me, "Ah, never mind, Master Tom, we'll see who'll laugh best bye and bye." Jake used to sneak down on the sly to put my bunk in order so that I might be more comfortable, having, like most pure negroes, a thorough contempt for the mulatto steward. He believed him quite incapable of looking after me properly. "Him only poor trash, Mass' Tom," he would say to me; "he can't do nuffin', I'se like to come an' look after um cabin for young massa, when I'se in watch below." Then, the good-natured fellow would scrub away energetically at the floor, deluged with water, and fix up things straight for me; making the place far more neat and tidy in five minutes than Harry the mulatto could have done if he had been all day over the job. He eclipsed the steward in his own line, while proving himself as good as any seaman in the ship. Jake was a handy chap, indeed, all round, for he was of very considerable assistance to Cuffee in the galley when the stormy weather interfered with the cooking; so, Captain Miles did not object to his coming to look after me in this way. He "winked at it," as he said. During the evening of the day on which the wind shifted round to the north-west, the sky somewhat cleared and the night was fine and starlight; but the gale seemed to blow with all the greater vehemence as the clouds dispersed. It increased to the strength of a hurricane towards one o'clock in the morning, when, the fore-topsail and mizzen staysail blowing away, the ship had to content herself with running under bare poles, careering through the water faster than ever. She had certainly never realised such speed since she had been launched.