I shall say nothing of the foulness of this place, because ’twas too foul to be written on paper; and if ’twas foul at starting, ’twas ten times worse when we reached open sea, for of all the prisoners only Elzevir and I were sailors, and the rest took the motion unkindly.

From the first we made bad weather of it, for though we were below and could see nothing, yet ’twas easy enough to tell there was a heavy head-sea running, almost as soon as we were well out of harbour.  Although Elzevir and I had not had any chance of talking freely for so long, and were now able to speak as we liked, being linked so close together, we said but little.  And this, not because we did not value very greatly one another’s company, but because we had nothing to talk of except memories of the past, and those were too bitter, and came too readily to our minds, to need any to summon them.  There was, too, the banishment from Europe, from all and everything we loved, and the awful certainty of slavery that lay continuously on us like a weight of lead.  Thus we said little.

We had been out a week, I think—­for time is difficult enough to measure where there is neither clock nor sun nor stars—­when the weather, which had moderated a little, began to grow much worse.  The ship plunged and laboured heavily, and this added much to our discomfort; because there was nothing to hold on by, and unless we lay flat on the filthy deck, we ran a risk of being flung to the side whenever there came a more violent lurch or roll.  Though we were so deep down, yet the roaring of wind and wave was loud enough to reach us, and there was such a noise when the ship went about, such grinding of ropes, with creaking and groaning of timbers, as would make a landsman fear the brig was going to pieces.  And this some of our fellow-prisoners feared indeed, and fell to crying, or kneeling chained together as they were upon the sloping deck, while they tried to remember long-forgotten prayers.  For my own part, I wondered why these poor wretches should pray to be delivered from the sea, when all that was before them was lifelong slavery; but I was perhaps able to look more calmly on the matter myself as having been at sea, and not thinking that the vessel was going to founder because of the noise.  Yet the storm rose till ’twas very plain that we were in a raging sea, and the streams which began to trickle through the joinings of the hatch showed that water had got below.

‘I have known better ships go under for less than this,’ Elzevir said to me; ’and if our skipper hath not a tight craft, and stout hands to work her, there will soon be two score slaves the less to cut the canes in Java.  I cannot guess where we are now—­may be off Ushant, may be not so far, for this sea is too short for the Bay; but the saints send us sea-room, for we have been wearing these three hours.’