The Castaways | Page 7

and had curled herself up comfortably in the corner most distant from
the piano, and was reading with an air of absorption and interest so
pronounced as really to be almost offensive to the performers. In
almost anyone else the manifestation of so profound an indifference to
the efforts of others to please would have been regarded as an
indication of ill-breeding; but in her case--well, she was so regally and
entrancingly lovely that somehow one felt as though her beauty
justified everything, and that it was an act of condescension and a
favour that she graced the cuddy with her presence at all. And indeed I
was very much disposed to think that this was her own view of the
matter. Be that as it may, we all spent an exceedingly pleasant evening;
and when I turned into my bunk that night I felt very well satisfied with
the prospects of the voyage before me.
CHAPTER TWO.
AT SEA--A WRECK IN SIGHT.
I was awakened at six o'clock the next morning by the men chorussing
at the windlass, and the quick clank of the pawls that showed how
thoroughly Jack was putting his heart into his work, and how quickly
he was walking the ship up to her anchor. I scrambled out of my bunk,
and took a peep through the port in the ship's side, to see what the
weather was like; it was scarcely daylight yet; the glass of the port was
blurred with the quick splashing of rain, and the sky was simply a blot
of scurrying, dirty grey vapour. I made a quick mental reference to the
condition of the tide, deducting therefrom the direction of the ship's
head, and thus arrived at the fact that the wind still hung in the same
quarter as yesterday, or about south-east; after which I turned in again,
the weather being altogether too dismal to tempt me out on deck at so

early an hour. As I did so there was a loud cry or command, the
chorussing at the windlass abruptly ceased, and in the silence that
temporarily ensued I caught the muffled sound of the steam
blowing-off from the tug's waste-pipe, mingled with the faint sound of
hailing from somewhere ahead, answered in the stentorian tones of Mr
Murgatroyd's voice. Then the windlass was manned once more, and the
pawls clanked slowly, sullenly, irregularly, for a time, growing slower
and slower still until there ensued a long pause, during which I heard
the mate encouraging the crew to a special effort by shouting: "Heave,
boys! heave and raise the dead! break him out! another pawl! heave!"
and so on; then there occurred a sudden wrenching jerk, followed by a
shout of triumph from the crew, the windlass pawls resumed their
clanking at a rapid rate for a few minutes longer when they finally
ceased, and I knew that our anchor was a-trip and that we had started
on our long journey.
Everybody appeared at breakfast that morning, naturally; there was
nothing to prevent them, for we were still in the river, in smooth water,
and the ship glided along so steadily that some of us were actually
ignorant of the fact of our being under way until made aware of it by
certain remarks passed at the breakfast-table. After breakfast, the
weather being as "dirty" as ever, I donned my mackintosh and a pair of
sea boots with which I had provided myself in anticipation of such
occasions as this, and went on deck to look round and smoke a pipe. A
few other men followed my example, among others the general, who
presently joined me in my perambulation of the poop; and I soon found
that, despite a certain peremptoriness and dictatorial assertiveness of
manner, which I attributed to his profession, and his position in it, he
was a very fine fellow, and a most agreeable companion, with an
apparently inexhaustible fund of anecdote and reminiscence.
Incidentally I learned from him that Miss Onslow was the daughter of
Sir Philip Onslow, an Indian judge and a friend of Sir Patrick O'Brien,
and that she was proceeding to Calcutta under the chaperonage of Lady
Kathleen, the general's wife. While we were still chatting together, the
young lady herself came on deck, well wrapped up in a long tweed
cloak that reached to her ankles, and the general, with an apology to me
for his desertion, stepped forward and gallantly offered his arm, which

she accepted. And she remained on deck the whole of the morning,
with the wind blustering about her and the rain dashing in her face
every time that she faced it in her passage from the wheel grating to the
break of the poop, to the great benefit of her complexion. She was the
only