CHAPTER XXV.THE STEERAGE PASSENGER.
"Pray you sit by us, and tell's a tale."
"Pray you sit by us, and tell's a tale."
"Pray you sit by us, and tell's a tale."
"Pray you sit by us, and tell's a tale."
"Pray you sit by us, and tell's a tale."
Twelfth Night.
"Mrs. Homeand party" were to be seen in the list of names of those who sailed from Calcutta in the steamerPalestineon the 20th of March. There were not many other passengers, but those on board were sociable and friendly; and the old days, when Bengal and Madras did not speak, paraded different sides of the deck, and only met in the saloon at the point of the knife (and fork), are gone to return no more. The weather was at first exceedingly rough, the water "plenty jumping," in the phraseology of Mrs. Home's ayah. She, like her mistress, became a captive to Neptune almost as soon as the engines were in motion. Once out on the open sea she lay for days on the floor, rolled up in her sarée like a bolster or a mummy, uttering pitiful moans andinvocations to her relations. Helen was a capital sailor and took entire charge of Tom and Billy, and was invaluable to her sick friend, upon whom she waited with devoted attention, tempting her with beef-tea and toast and other warranted sea-refreshments.
Not a few of her fellow-passengers would have been pleased to while away the empty hours, in dalliance with the tall girl in black, but she showed no desire for society, and as it was whispered that she had recently lost some near relation, and wasreallyin deep grief, she was left to herself, and to the company of Tom and Billy.—It seemed quite marvellous to the community, that such a pretty girl should be returning to Englandunmarried. They shrugged their shoulders, lifted their eyebrows, and wondered to one another whether it was becauseshewas too hard to please, or whether the community at Port Blair were stolid semi-savages?
The first little piece of excitement that broke the monotony of the voyage, was the discovery of a stowaway in one of the boats, who was not starved out till they had passed Galle. He proved to be a deserter from a regiment in Calcutta, and was promptly sent below to stoke, as extra fireman, and doubtless he found that employment (especially in the Red Sea) even less to his taste than drilling in the cool of the morning on the Midan near Fort William. The Red Sea was as calm as the proverbial mill-pond, and the motion of the steamer almost imperceptible. The ayah recovered from her state of torpor, and Mrs. Home actually made her appearance at meals, and joined the social circle on deck. Every evening there was singing, the songs being chiefly contributed by the ladies and one or two German gentlemenen routefrom Burmah to the Fatherland. Passengers who could not, or would not, perform vocally, were called upon to tell stories, and those hot April nights, as they throbbed past the dark Arabian coast, were long remembered by many on board. Chief among the entertainers was the captain of thePalestine. He related more than one yarn of thrilling adventures by sea. The German merchants told weird legends, and episodes of the late great war, a grizzled colonel gave hisexperiences of the Mutiny, a subaltern his first exploit out after tigers, but the most popularraconteurof them all was the first officer, Mr. Waters. When he appeared, and took his seat among the company after tea, there was an immediate and clamorous call for a story—a story.
"Now, Mr. Waters, we have been waiting for you!"
Apropos of the stowaway, he recounted the following tale, to which Billy Home, who was seated on Helen's knee, with his arm encircling her neck, listened with very mixed sensations:—
"When I was second officer of theBlack Swan, from Melbourne to London," he began promptly—yes, he liked telling yarns,—"we had one uncommonly queer trip, a trip that I shall not forget in a hurry, no, and I don't fancy that many of those who were on board will forget it either! It was the year of the Paris Exhibition, and all the world and his wife were crowding home. We had every berth full, and people doubled up anywhere, even sleeping on the floor of the saloon. We left port with three hundred cabin, and seventy-five steerage passengers. At first the weather was as if it were made to order, and all went well till about the third night out, when the disturbance began, at least, it began, as far asIwas concerned. I was knocked up about an hour after I had come off watch, and out of my first sleep, by some one thundering at my door. I, thinking it was a mistake, swore a bit, and roared out that they were to go to the third officer, and the devil! But, instead of this, the door was gently opened, and the purser put in a very long white face, and said,—
"'Look here, Waters, I want you in my cabin; there is the mischief to pay, and I can't make it out! I can't get a wink of sleep, for the most awful groans you ever heard!'
"I sat up and looked at him hard. He was always a sober man, he was sober now, and he was not walking in his sleep. After a moment's very natural hesitation, I threw on some clothes, and followed him to his cabin, which was forward. The light was still burning, and his bunk turned back just as he had leapt out of it; but there was nothing to be seen.
"'Wait a bit,' he said eagerly, 'hold on a minute and listen.'
"I did, I waited, and listened with all my ears, and I heard nothing but the thumping of the engines, and the tramping of the officer on watch overhead. I was about to turn on my heel with rather an angry remark, when he arrested me with a livid face, and said,—
"'There it is!' and sure enough there itwas—a low, deep, hollow groan, and no mistake about it, a groan as if wrung from some one in mortal agony, some one suffering lingering and excruciating torture.—I looked at the purser, big beads of perspiration were standing on his forehead, and he looked hard at me. 'I heard it all last night,' he said in a husky whisper, 'but I was afraid to speak. I hunted to-day high and low, and sounded every hole and corner, but there is nothing to be found!' Then he ceased speaking, there it wasagain, louder, more painful than ever; it certainly came from some place below the floor, and on the starboard side. We both knelt down, and hammered, and knocked, and called, and laid our ears to the boards, but it was of no use,—there was silence.
"'Perhaps it was some one snoring,' I suggested, 'or it might be a dog?'
"'No,' returned the purser, who was still on his knees, 'it's a human voice, and the groans of a dying man, as sure as I'm a live one!'
"I remained in the cabin for half an hour, and though we overhauled the whole concern, we heard nothing more, so I fetched up for my own bunk, and turned in and went to sleep.
"The next day the purser said he heard the moans very faintly, as if they were now getting weaker and weaker, and after this entirely ceased. For a good spell everything went along without a hitch, we had A 1 weather, and made first-class runs. But one evening, in the twilight, I noticed a great commotion in the saloon, I heard high talking—a woman's voice! One of the lady passengers was the centre of a crowd, and was making some angry complaint to the captain.
"'It's the young man in the boots again!' she said. 'And it's reallytoo bad. Why is he allowed in this part of the ship, what are the stewards about? It is insufferable to be persecuted in this manner! Every evening, at this hour, he comes to the door of the saloon and beckons tome, or to any one who is near, but he never seems to catch any one's eyes butmine! It's really disgraceful that the steerage passengers should be allowed among us in this way.'
"The saloon stewards were all called up and rigidly cross-examined by the captain, but they all most positively declared that no stranger had been seen by them, nor was there any steerage passenger on board that at all answered the lady's description.
"'Of course, that's nonsense!' she exclaimed indignantly. 'He comes to the bar for spirits on the sly—and very sly he is—for I've gone to the door to see what he wanted, and he has always contrived to slip away.'
"An extra sharp lookout was accordingly kept by the captain's orders, but the head steward privately informed me with a grin 'that there was no such person as a tall young man in a blue jumper, with long boots, on the ship's books,' and we both came to the conclusion that the lady was decidedly wanting in her top gear.
"However, after a while other people began to see the steerage passenger. Not merely ladies only, but hard-headed, practical, elderly men; and very disagreeable whispers began to get afloat that 'the ship was haunted!' The apparition in long butcher boots, could never be caught or traced, but he was visible repeatedly; and did not merely confine himself to hanging about and beckoning at the saloon door—he was now to be met in passages, at the dark turns on the stairs behind the wheel-house, and even on the bridge,—but always after dusk. Things now began to be extremely unpleasant, discipline was scorned, at the veryideaof taking away the lights at eleven o'clock, there was uproar, and an open mutiny among the ladies. Passengers were completely unmanageable, the women going about in gangs, and the very crew in couples. The captain endeavoured to make a bold stand against the ghost, but he was silenced by a clamour of voices, and by a cloud ofwitnesses who had allseenit, and, to make matters better, we came in for the most awful weather I ever experienced, our hatches were stove in, our decks swept, and I never was more thankful in all my life than when we took up our pilot in the Downs. What between the ghost and the gales, even our most seasoned salts were shaky, and grumbled among themselves, that one would almost imagine that we had a dead body on board! However, we managed to dock without any misadventure, beyond being five days over our time, having lost three boats, and gained the agreeable reputation of being a haunted ship! When we were getting out the cargo, and having the usual overhaul below, I happened to be on duty one day when I was accosted by the boatswain, who came aft to where I was standing, with an uncommonly grave face. 'Please, sir,' said he, 'we've found something we did not bargain for; it was in the place where the anchor-chain is, and now, the chain being all paid out, it's empty, you see—' he paused a moment,—'all but for a dead man.'
"Of course I hurried forward at once, and looked down into a dark hole, when, by the light of a bit of candle held by one of the crew, I saw, sure enough, crushed up against one side the skeleton of a man—a skeleton, for the rats had picked his bones clean; his coat still hung on him, he wore long digger's boots, and a digger's hat covered his bare skull.
"I started back, and fell foul of the candle, though I'm not a particularly nervous person, for I now remembered the groans I had heard in the purser's cabin.
"'You see, sir, how it was," said the boatswain, 'he was a stowaway, in course. When we were in dock, this place was empty. Cause why? The anchor-chain is out, and it seemed to this poor ignorant wretch, who was no seaman anyway, to be just the very spot—as it were, made for him! I've a kind of recollection of him, too, hanging about when we were taking in cargo. He was young, and looked like a half-starved, broken-down gentleman, such as you see every day in the colony, who come out—bless their innocence!—a-thinking the nuggets is growing on the trees, and sink down to beggary, or to working their way homebefore the mast. Ay, he thought to get a cast back,' said the bo'sun, 'and he just walked straight into the jaws of death. The moment we began to weigh anchor, and the chain came reeling, and reeling, into his hiding-place, it had no outlet but the hole at the top, and the rattle of it and the noise of the donkey-engine drowned his cries: he was just walled in, poor chap, and buried up alive!'
"Of course, we all knew, that this was the mysterious apparition in long boots, who had created such an unparalleled disturbance on the passage home. Presently the remains were decently carried away, and there was an inquest, but nothing could be discovered about the body. We subscribed for the funeral among us, and he was buried in the nearest church-yard. We sailors are a superstitious lot, and though we got out of it (I mean, bringing home a corpse) better than could be expected, so we gave him a respectable funeral; but there is no name on the stone cross above his head, for the only one, we knew him by, was that of the 'Steerage Passenger!'"
The chief officer brought his story to an end in the midst of a dead, nay, an awe-struck silence. People shuddered and looked nervously behind them. They were on board ship, too! Why should not thePalestinehave a ghost of her own, as well as theBlack Swan?
The utter stillness, was suddenly broken by a loud howl from Billy Home, who had been listening with all the power of his unusually capacious ears, and seemed to have but just wakened up from a sort of trance of horror. He shrieked and clung to Helen, who had whispered a hint with regard to bed-time.
"No, no, no," he would not come. "No, not alone," he added with a yell, hanging to her with the tenacity of a limpet; "not unless you stay with me.—I'm afraid of the man downstairs,—Iknowhe is downstairs."
"I declare," said the bearded story-teller, "I quite forgot that little beggar was there. I never noticed him till now, or I would not have told you that yarn."
Needless to remark, his apology came rather too late. At every turn of the companion-ladder, at every open door, Billy lived in whining anticipation of meeting what he called "the man in the boots," and for the remainder of the voyage he was figuratively a mill-stone, round Helen's neck.
They had an uneventful passage down the Mediterranean, halting at Malta for lace, oranges, and canaries; they passed Cape Bon, then the coast of Spain, and the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. The Home boys had never beheld snow till now, and were easily induced to believe, that what they beheld was pounded sugar, and languished at the mountains with greedy eyes, as long as they remained in sight. On a certain Sunday afternoon in April thePalestinearrived in the Victoria Docks, London. Numerous expectant friends came swarming on board, all eagerness and expectation, but there was no one to welcome Helen,—no face among that friendly crowd was seeking hers. Being a Sunday, there was, of course, some difficulty about cabs and trains, and the docks were very remote from the fashionable quarter where her aunt Julia resided: so she swallowed her disappointment and made excuses to herself. However, Mrs. Home, who had been met by her brother, insisted upon personally conducting her to her journey's end. First they went by rail above ground, then by rail under ground, finally by cab, and after a long drive, the travellers drew up at Mrs. Platt's rather pinched-looking mansion in Upper Cream Street. A man-servant answered the bell, flung wide the door with a jerk, and stood upon the threshold in dignified amazement on beholdingtwocabs, heavily laden with baggage.
Was Mrs. Platt at home?
"No, ma'am. She and the young ladies have gone to afternoon church; but Miss Denis isexpected."
Rather a tepid reception, Mrs. Home thought, with a secret thrill of indignation. Much, much, she wished that she could have taken Helen with her there and then. She hugged her vigorously, as did also Tom and Billy; and telling her, that she would come and see her very soon, she re-entered her cab, and with her brother, children, and luggage, was presently rattled away. Helen felt as she stood on the steps, andwatched those familiar trunks, turning a corner,—that her last link with the Andamans, and all her recent life, was now broken.