"Decidedly," he thought, "my breakfast was poisoned, else I could
never feel like this."
The _Good Intent_ took another lurch forward, and a clammy sweat
broke out on both sides of his forehead.
"If I have enemies so wicked," sighed he, "may God forgive them!"
And, uttering this Christian wish, he fell forward with his forehead
against the boards.
A little past noon the sentry brought him a fresh loaf, with a plate
of fat bacon and another pannikin. The sea being choppy, by this
time the vessel echoed from end to end with groans and lamentations.
"Is it a massacre?" Tristram asked, sitting up and regarding the man
with wild eyes. But the sight of the bacon, which was plentifully
doused with vinegar, conquered him afresh. The sentry chuckled and
went away.
To be short, our hero passed two-and-twenty hours in this extremity
of wretchedness, and was only aroused, early next morning, by a
corporal who thrust his head in at the hatchway and bade him arise
and come on deck with all speed, as the regiment was about to
disembark. And, as a matter of fact, when Tristram tottered up the
ladder into the fresh air which swept the deck, he found that, though
he had been beyond remarking any difference in the ship's motion, she
was now lying at anchor, and within a cable's length from a desolate
shore, which began in sandhills and ended in mist.
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