I looked around me and took in a deep breath.  The Doctor was at the wheel steering the boat which was now leaping and plunging gently through the waves. (I had expected to feel seasick at first but was delighted to find that I didn’t.) Bumpo had been told off to go downstairs and prepare dinner for us.  Chee-Chee was coiling up ropes in the stern and laying them in neat piles.  My work was fastening down the things on the deck so that nothing could roll about if the weather should grow rough when we got further from the land.  Jip was up in the peak of the boat with ears cocked and nose stuck out—­ like a statue, so still—­his keen old eyes keeping a sharp look-out for floating wrecks, sand-bars, and other dangers.  Each one of us had some special job to do, part of the proper running of a ship.  Even old Polynesia was taking the sea’s temperature with the Doctor’s bath-ther-mometer tied on the end of a string, to make sure there were no icebergs near us.  As I listened to her swearing softly to herself because she couldn’t read the pesky figures in the fading light, I realized that the voyage had begun in earnest and that very soon it would be night—­my first night at sea!

THE THIRD CHAPTER

OUR TROUBLES BEGIN

Just before supper-time Bumpo appeared from downstairs and went to the Doctor at the wheel.

“A stowaway in the hold, Sir,” said he in a very business-like seafaring voice.  “I just discovered him, behind the flour-bags.”

“Dear me!” said the Doctor.  “What a nuisance!  Stubbins, go down with Bumpo and bring the man up.  I can’t leave the wheel just now.”

So Bumpo and I went down into the hold; and there, behind the flour-bags, plastered in flour from head to foot, we found a man.  After we had swept most of the flour off him with a broom, we discovered that it was Matthew Mugg.  We hauled him upstairs sneezing and took him before the Doctor.

“Why Matthew!” said John Dolittle.  “What on earth are you doing here?”

“The temptation was too much for me, Doctor,” said the cat’s-meat-man.  “You know I’ve often asked you to take me on voyages with you and you never would.  Well, this time, knowing that you needed an extra man, I thought if I stayed hid till the ship was well at sea you would find I came in handy like and keep me.  But I had to lie so doubled up, for hours, behind them flour-bags, that my rheumatism came on something awful.  I just had to change my position; and of course just as I stretched out my legs along comes this here African cook of yours and sees my feet sticking out—­Don’t this ship roll something awful!  How long has this storm been going on?  I reckon this damp sea air wouldn’t be very good for my rheumatics.”

“No, Matthew it really isn’t.  You ought not to have come.  You are not in any way suited to this kind of a life.  I’m sure you wouldn’t enjoy a long voyage a bit.  We’ll stop in at Penzance and put you ashore.  Bumpo, please go downstairs to my bunk; and listen:  in the pocket of my dressing-gown you’ll find some maps.  Bring me the small one—­with blue pencil-marks at the top.  I know Penzance is over here on our left somewhere.  But I must find out what light-houses there are before I change the ship’s course and sail inshore.”