Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/219

Rh epileptic fit, and also another during the first ten days, doubtless accelerated by this act of brutality. I regret to say it was committed by a naval officer who was tipsy. Another sonorous voice bid us "die like Christians"; but I don't think that was any sentiment of the speaker's. Ever and anon the dismal scene was interlarded with "short and crisp" sentences, not comforting, such as, "We can't live long in such a sea as this"; "We're going to the bad"; "Won't the captain put into Holyhead?" "There go the pumps—we've seven feet of water in the hold" (when we stopped and reversed, to try and rescue the quartermaster); "The water has got into our engines, and we can't go on"; "There's the carpenter hammering—the captain's cabin is stove in," etc., etc. A rich lady gave the stewardess £5 to hold her hand all night, so the rest of us poorer ones had to do without that matron's ministrations.

I crawled to my cabin, and, as I lay there trembling and sea-sick, something tumbled against the door, rolled in, and sank on the floor. It was the tipsy naval officer. I could not rise, I could not shut the door, I could not tug him out; so I lay there. When Richard, who was lending a hand at the pumps, had finished his work, he crawled along the decks till he got to the cabin, where the sea had swamped through the open door pretty considerably. "Hullo! What's that?" he said. I managed faintly to ejaculate, "The tipsy naval officer." He picked him up by the scruff of the neck, and, regardless of consequences, he propelled him with a good kick behind all down the deck, and shut the door. He said, "The captain says we can't live more