Australian Tales - Setis

hurley-burley; at least so thought Mr. Moans, so he got out of bed, and
watched the commotion of the elements through the cabin window, and
wished he had a poet's fancy that could be tickled with the scene. But
even the grim satisfaction of gazing on that strange “meeting of the
waters” was denied him, for a lively little wavelet — as though in playful
mockery of his plaintive singing, “What are the wild waves saying”
— flew directly at his face, dashed through the cabin window, and
deluged the sofa and the cabin floor, while an extra lurch at the same
moment caused a select library of books to descend about his ears, from
a shelf in the corner; two weighty volumes of “Good Words” giving him
some bad blows on the head. Thankful that the wave had not invaded his
berth, Mr. Moans hastily jumped into bed again, and there he lay and
tried to calmly contemplate the sublimity of the storm without, to
calculate his chances of ever seeing his quiet little dormitory again, and
to reason with his doubts about his intellectual faculties ever finding their
way back to their proper bumps after being shaken and jostled up with
the subordinate organs in his cranium like gingerbread nuts in a tin
canister.
Presently he heard a clanking noise like a fire-engine, and he soon
ascertained that all hands were at pumps, so he reasonably concluded that
the ship had sprung a leak, and he began to estimate how long it would
be before she sunk, as she had scarcely more than six inches of a side.
But before he had satisfactorily worked that problem out, a thumping sea
struck the deck-house, close to his ear, making the ship shudder from
stem to stern. His mind was thereby diverted into the fidgetty
anticipation of a sudden launch over the lee rail in his berth. He had often
read of deck-houses being knocked off the deck, and had seen a cook's
galley, full of coppers and saucepans, washed overboard; and while
gloomy recollections of those casualties helped him to draw a mental
picture of his deck-house being swept away by the next heavy sea that
struck it, the contemplation of the event was even less composing than a
view of his next door neighbour's blazing house would be while looking
out of his own attic window. The most favourable speculations on such a
mishap yielded him no comfort, for even should the deck-house be
toppled upside down in its transit over the rail — to say nothing of the
bruises he would probably receive by being toppled upside down too
— the house would be sure to leak at the doors and windows, and he
could scarcely expect to navigate it to Sydney without sails, oars, rudder,
or other nautical convenience. But if it should happen to go overboard
with its roof uppermost, of course he would be as badly off as a man in a
diving bell, without an air-pump. As sea after sea continued to strike the
deck-house, he felt his tenure to be peculiarly uncertain, and was wishing
that he could spread his blankets below upon the coals, and at the same
time haul those gentlemen with him who had put too many coals on