THE STEAMER
I awoke with a start, and with wavering eyes looked at the saloon
clock. I had slept for one hour only, but it appeared to me that I was
quite refreshed. My mind was strangely clear, every sense
preternaturally alert. I began to wonder what had aroused me. Suddenly
the ship shuddered through the very heart of her, and I knew that it
was this shuddering, which must have occurred before, that had wakened
me.
"Good God! We're sinking!" a man cried. He was in the next berth to
me, and he sat up, staring wildly.
"Rubbish!" I answered.
The electric lights went out, and we were left with the miserable
illumination of one little swinging oil-lamp. Immediately the score or
so persons in the saloon were afoot and rushing about, grasping their
goods and chattels. The awful shuddering of the ship continued.
Scarcely a word was spoken.
A man flew, or rather, tumbled, down the saloon stairs, shouting:
"Where's my wife? Where's my wife?" No one took the slightest notice
of him, nor did he seem to expect any answer. Even in the
semi-darkness of the single lamp I distinctly saw that with both hands
he was tearing handfuls of hair from his head. I had heard the phrase
"tearing one's hair" some thousands of time in my life, but never till
that moment had I witnessed the action itself. Somehow it made an
impression on me. The man raced round the saloon still shouting, and
raced away again up-stairs and out of sight. Everyone followed him
pell-mell, helter-skelter, and almost in a second I found myself
alone. I put on my overcoat, and my mackintosh over that, and seizing
Rosa's jewel-box, I followed the crowd.
As I emerged on deck a Bengal light flared red and dazzling on the
bridge, and I saw some sailors trying to lower a boat from its davits.
Then I knew that the man who had cried "We're sinking!" even if he was
not speaking the exact truth, had at any rate some grounds for his
assertion.
A rather pretty girl, pale with agitation, seized me by the
buttonhole.
"Where are we going?" she questioned earnestly.
"Don't know, madam," I replied; and then a young man dragged her off
by the arm.
"Come this way, Lottie," I heard him say to her, "and keep calm."
I was left staring at the place where the girl's head had been. Then
the head of an old man filled that place. I saw his mouth and all his
features working in frantic endeavor to speak to me, but he could not
articulate. I stepped aside; I could not bear to look at him.
"Carl," I said to myself, "you are undoubtedly somewhat alarmed, but
you are not in such an absolutely azure funk as that old chap. Pull
yourself together."
Of what followed immediately I have no recollection. I knew vaguely
that the ship rolled and had a serious list to starboard, that orders
were being hoarsely shouted from the bridge, that the moon was shining
fitfully, that the sea was black and choppy; I also seemed to catch
the singing of a hymn somewhere on the forward deck. I suppose I knew
that I existed. But that was all. I had no exact knowledge of what I
myself was doing. There was a hiatus in my consciousness of myself.
The proof of this is that, after a lapse of time, I suddenly
discovered that I had smoked half-way through a cigarette, and that I
was at the bows of the steamer. For a million sovereigns I could not
explain under what circumstances I had moved from one end of the ship
to the other, nor how I had come to light that cigarette. Such is the
curious effect of perturbation.
But the perturbation had now passed from me, just as mysteriously as
it had overtaken me. I was cool and calm. I felt inquisitive, and I
asked several people what had happened. But none seemed to know. In
fact, they scarcely heard me, and answered wildly, as if in delirium.
It seemed strange that anything could have occurred on so small a
vessel without the precise details being common property. Yet so it
was, and those who have been in an accident at sea will support me
when I say that the ignorance on the part of the passengers of the
events actually in progress is not the least astounding nor the least
disconcerting item in such an affair. It was the psychology of the
railway accident repeated.
I began to observe. The weather was a little murky, but beyond doubt
still improving. The lights of the French coast could clearly be seen.
The ship rolled in a short sea; her engines had stopped; she still had
the formidable list to starboard; the captain was on the bridge,
leaning over, and with his hands round his mouth was giving orders to
an officer below. The sailors were still struggling to lower the boat
from the davits. The passengers stood about, aimless, perhaps
terror-struck, but now for the most part quiet and self-contained.
Some of them had life-belts. That was the sum of my observations.
A rocket streamed upwards into the sky, and another and another, then
one caught the rigging, and, deflected, whizzed down again within a
few feet of my head, and dropped on deck, spluttering in a silly,
futile way. I threw the end of my cigarette at it to see whether that
might help it along.
"So this is a shipwreck," I ejaculated. "And I'm in it. I've got
myself safely off the railway only to fall into the sea. What a d----d
shame!"
Queerly enough, I had ceased to puzzle myself with trying to discover
how the disaster had been brought about. I honestly made up my mind
that we were sinking, and that was sufficient.
"What cursed ill-luck!" I murmured philosophically.
I thought of Rosa, with whom I was to have breakfasted on the morrow,
whose jewels I was carrying, whose behest it had been my pleasure to
obey. At that moment she seemed to me in my mind's eye more beautiful,
of a more exquisite charm, than ever before. "Am I going to lose her?"
I murmured. And then: "What a sensation there'll be in the papers if
this ship does go down!" My brain flitted from point to point in a
quick agitation. I decided suddenly that the captain and crew must be
a set of nincompoops, who had lost their heads, and, not knowing what
to do, were unserenely doing nothing. And quite as suddenly I reversed
my decision, and reflected that no doubt the captain was doing
precisely the correct thing, and that the crew were loyal and
disciplined.
Then my mind returned to Rosa. What would she say, what would she
feel, when she learnt that I had been drowned in the Channel? Would
she experience a grief merely platonic, or had she indeed a
profounder feeling towards me? Drowned! Who said drowned? There were
the boats, if they could be launched, and, moreover, I could swim. I
considered what I should do at the moment the ship foundered--for I
still felt she would founder. I was the blackest of pessimists. I said
to myself that I would spring as far as I could into the sea, not only
to avoid the sucking in of the vessel, but to get clear of the other
passengers.
Suppose that a passenger who could not swim should by any chance seize
me in the water, how should I act? This was a conundrum. I could not
save another and myself, too. I said I would leave that delicate point
till the time came, but in my heart I knew that I should beat off such
a person with all the savagery of despair--unless it happened to be a
woman. I felt that I could not repulse a drowning woman, even if to
help her for a few minutes meant death for both of us.
How insignificant seemed everything else--everything outside the ship
and the sea and our perilous plight! The death of Alresca, the
jealousy of Carlotta Deschamps, the plot (if there was one) against
Rosa--what were these matters to me? But Rosa was something. She was
more than something; she was all. A lovely, tantalizing vision of her
appeared to float before my eyes.
I peered over the port rail to see whether we were in fact gradually
sinking. The heaving water looked a long way off, and the idea of this
raised my spirits for an instant. But only for an instant. The
apparent inactivity of those in charge annoyed while it saddened me.
They were not even sending up rockets now, nor burning Bengal lights.
I had no patience left to ask more questions. A mood of disgust seized
me. If the captain himself had stood by my side waiting to reply to
requests for information, I doubt if I should have spoken. I felt like
the spectator who is compelled to witness a tragedy which both wounds
and bores him. I was obsessed by my own ill-luck and the stupidity of
the rest of mankind. I was particularly annoyed by the spasmodic
hymn-singing that went on in various parts of the deck.
The man who had burst into the saloon shouting "Where is my wife?"
reappeared from somewhere, and standing near to me started to undress
hastily. I watched him. He had taken off his coat, waistcoat, and
boots, when a quiet, amused voice said: "I shouldn't do that if I were
you. It's rather chilly, you know. Besides, think of the ladies."
Without a word he began with equal celerity to reassume his clothes. I
turned to the speaker. It was the youth who had dragged the girl away
from me when I first came up on deck. She was on his arm, and had a
rug over her head. Both were perfectly self-possessed. The serenity of
the young man's face particularly struck me. I was not to be out-done.
"Have a cigarette?" I said.
"Thanks."
"Do you happen to know what all this business is?" I asked him.
"It's a collision," he said. "We were struck on the port paddle-box.
That saved us for the moment."
"How did it occur?"
"Don't know."
"And where's the ship that struck us?"
"Oh, somewhere over there--two or three miles away." He pointed
vaguely to the northeast. "You see, half the paddle-wheel was knocked
off, and when that sank, of course the port side rose out of the
water. I believe those paddle-wheels weigh a deuce of a lot."
"Are we going to sink?"
"Don't know. Can tell you more in half an hour. I've got two
life-belts hidden under a seat. They're rather a nuisance to carry
about. You're shivering, Lottie. We must take some more exercise. See
you later, sir."
And the two went off again. The girl had not looked at me, nor I at
her. She did not seem to be interested in our conversation. As for her
companion, he restored my pride in my race.
I began to whistle. Suddenly the whistle died on my lips. Standing
exactly opposite to me, on the starboard side, was the mysterious
being whom I had last seen in the railway carriage at Sittingbourne.
He was, as usual, imperturbable, sardonic, terrifying. His face, which
chanced to be lighted by the rays of a deck lantern, had the pallor
and the immobility of marble, and the dark eyes held me under their
hypnotic gaze.
Again I had the sensation of being victimized by a conspiracy of which
this implacable man was the head. I endured once more the mental
tortures which I had suffered in the railway carriage, and now, as
then, I felt helpless and bewildered. It seemed to me that his
existence overshadowed mine, and that in some way he was connected
with the death of Alresca. Possibly there was a plot, in which the
part played by the jealousy of Carlotta Deschamps was only a minor
one. Possibly I had unwittingly stepped into a net of subtle intrigue,
of the extent of whose boundaries and ramifications I had not the
slightest idea. Like one set in the blackness of an unfamiliar
chamber, I feared to step forward or backward lest I might encounter
some unknown horror.
It may be argued that I must have been in a highly nervous condition
in order to be affected in such a manner by the mere sight of a man--a
man who had never addressed to me a single word of conversation.
Perhaps so. Yet up to that period of my life my temperament and habit
of mind had been calm, unimpressionable, and if I may say so, not
specially absurd.
What need to inquire how the man had got on board that ship--how he
had escaped death in the railway accident--how he had eluded my sight
at Dover Priory? There he stood. Evidently he had purposed to pursue
me to Paris, and little things like railway collisions were
insufficient to deter him. I surmised that he must have quitted the
compartment at Sittingbourne immediately after me, meaning to follow
me, but that the starting of the train had prevented him from entering
the same compartment as I entered. According to this theory, he must
have jumped into another compartment lower down the train as the train
was moving, and left it when the collision occurred, keeping his eye
on me all the time, but not coming forward. He must even have walked
after me down the line from Dover Priory to the pier.
However, a shipwreck was a more serious affair than a railway
accident. And if the ship were indeed doomed, it would puzzle even him
to emerge with his life. He might seize me in the water, and from
simple hate drag me to destruction,--yes, that was just what he would
do,--but he would have a difficulty in saving himself. Such were my
wild and fevered notions!
On the starboard bow I saw the dim bulk and the masthead lights of a
steamer approaching us. The other passengers had observed it, too,
and there was a buzz of anticipation on the slanting deck. Only the
inimical man opposite to me seemed to ignore the stir. He did not even
turn round to look at the object which had aroused the general
excitement. His eyes never left me.
The vessel came nearer, till we could discern clearly the outline of
her, and a black figure on her bridge. She was not more than a hundred
yards away when the beat of her engines stopped. She hailed us. We
waited for the answering call from our own captain, but there was no
reply. Twice again she hailed us, and was answered only by silence.
"Why don't our people reply?" an old lady asked, who came up to me at
that moment, breathing heavily.
"Because they are d----d fools," I said roughly. She was a most
respectable and prim old lady; yet I could not resist shocking her
ears by an impropriety.
The other ship moved away into the night.
Was I in a dream? Was this a pantomime shipwreck? Then it occurred to
me that the captain was so sure of being ultimately able to help
himself that he preferred from motives of economy to decline
assistance which would involve a heavy salvage claim.
My self-possessed young man came along again in the course of his
peregrinations, the girl whom he called Lottie still on his arm. He
stopped for a chat.
"Most curious thing!" he began.
"What now?"
"Well, I found out about the collision."
"How did it occur?"
"In this way. The captain was on duty on the bridge, with the
steersman at the wheel. It was thickish weather then, much thicker
than it is now--in fact, there'll soon be no breeze left, and look at
the stars! Suddenly the lookout man shouted that there was a sail on
the weather bow, and it must have been pretty close, too. The captain
ordered the man at the wheel to put the boat to port--I don't know the
exact phraseology of the thing--so that we could pass the other ship
on our starboard side. Instead of doing that, the triple idiot shoved
us to starboard as hard as he could, and before the captain could do
anything, we were struck on the port paddle. The steersman had sent us
right into the other ship. If he had wanted specially to land us into
a good smash-up, he could scarcely have done it better. A good thing
we got caught on the paddle; otherwise we should have been cut clean
in two. As it was, the other boat recoiled and fell away."
"Was she damaged?"
"Probably not."
"How does the man at the wheel explain his action?"
"Well, that's the curious part. I was just coming to that. Naturally
he's in a great state of terror just now, but he can just talk. He
swears that when the captain gave his order a third person ran up the
steps leading to the bridge, and so frightened him that he was sort of
dazed, and did exactly the wrong thing."
"A queer tale!"
"I should think so. But he sticks to it. He even says that this highly
mysterious third person made him do the wrong thing. But that's
absolute tommy-rot."
"The man must be mad."
"I should have said he had been drunk, but there doesn't seem to be
any trace of that. Anyhow, he sees visions, and I maintain that the
Chatham and Dover people oughtn't to have their boats steered by men
who see visions, eh?"
"I agree with you. I suppose we aren't now in any real danger?"
"I should hardly think so. We might have been. It was pure luck that
we happened to get struck on the paddle-box, and also it was pure luck
that the sea has gone down so rapidly. With a list like this, a really
lively cross-sea would soon have settled us."
We were silent for a few moments. The girl looked idly round the ship,
and her eyes encountered the figure of the mysterious man. She seemed
to shiver.
"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, "what a terrible face that man
has!"
"Where?" said her friend.
"Over there. And how is it he's wearing a silk hat--here?"
His glance followed hers, but my follower had turned abruptly round,
and in a moment was moving quickly to the after-part of the ship. He
passed behind the smoke-stack, and was lost to our view.
"The back of him looks pretty stiff," the young man said. "I wonder if
he's the chap that alarmed the man at the wheel."
I laughed, and at the same time I accidentally dropped Rosa's
jewel-case, which had never left my hand. I picked it up hurriedly.
"You seem attached to that case," the young man said, smiling. "If we
had foundered, should you have let it go, or tried to swim ashore with
it?"
"The question is doubtful," I replied, returning his smile. In
shipwrecks one soon becomes intimate with strangers.
"If I mistake not, it is a jewel-case."
"It is a jewel-case."
He nodded with a moralizing air, as if reflecting upon the sordid love
of property which will make a man carry a jewel-case about with him
when the next moment he might find himself in the sea. At least, that
was my interpretation of the nodding. Then the brother and sister--for
such I afterwards discovered they were--left me to take care of my
jewel-case alone.
Why had I dropped the jewel-case? Was it because I was startled by the
jocular remark which identified the mysterious man with the person who
had disturbed the steersman? That remark was made in mere jest. Yet I
could not help thinking that it contained the truth. Nay, I knew that
it was true; I knew by instinct. And being true, what facts were
logically to be deduced from it? What aim had this mysterious man in
compelling, by his strange influences, the innocent sailor to guide
the ship towards destruction--the ship in which I happened to be a
passenger?... And then there was the railway accident. The stoker had
said that the engine-driver had been dazed--like the steersman. But
no. There are avenues of conjecture from which the mind shrinks. I
could not follow up that train of thought.
Happily, I did not see my enemy again--at least, during that journey.
And my mind was diverted, for the dawn came--the beautiful September
dawn. Never have I greeted the sun with deeper joy, and I fancy that
my sentiments were shared by everyone on board the vessel. As the
light spread over the leaden waters, and the coast of France was
silhouetted against the sky, the passengers seemed to understand that
danger was over, and that we had been through peril, and escaped. Some
threw themselves upon their knees, and prayed with an ecstasy of
thankfulness. Others re-commenced their hymning. Others laughed
rather hysterically, and began to talk at a prodigious rate. A few,
like myself, stood silent and apparently unmoved.
Then the engines began to beat. There was a frightful clatter of
scrap-iron and wood in the port paddle-box, and they stopped
immediately, whereupon we noticed that the list of the vessel was
somewhat more marked than before. The remainder of the port paddle
had, in fact, fallen away into the water. The hymn-singers ceased
their melodies, absorbed in anticipating what would happen next. At
last, after many orders and goings to and fro, the engines started
again, this time, of course, the starboard paddle, deeply immersed,
moved by itself. We progressed with infinite slowness, and in a most
peculiar manner, but we did progress, and that was the main thing. The
passengers cheered heartily.
We appeared to go in curves, but each curve brought us nearer to
Calais. As we approached that haven of refuge, it seemed as if every
steamer and smack of Calais was coming out to meet us. The steamers
whistled, the owners of smacks bawled and shouted. They desired to
assist; for were we not disabled, and would not the English railway
company pay well for help so gallantly rendered? Our captain,
however, made no sign, and, like a wounded, sullen animal, from whom
its companions timidly keep a respectful distance, we at length
entered Calais harbor, and by dint of much seamanship and polyglottic
swearing brought up safely at the quay.
Then it was that one fully perceived, with a feeling of shame, how
night had magnified the seriousness of the adventure; how it had been
nothing, after all; how it would not fill more than half a column in
the newspapers; how the officers of the ship must have despised the
excited foolishness of passengers who would not listen to reasonable,
commonplace explanations.
The boat was evacuated in the twinkling of an eye. I have never seen a
Channel steamer so quickly empty itself. It was as though the people
were stricken by a sudden impulse to dash away from the poor craft at
any cost. At the Customs, amid all the turmoil and bustle, I saw
neither my young friend and his sister, nor my enemy, who so far had
clung to me on my journey.
I learned that a train would start in about a quarter of an hour. I
had some coffee and a roll at the buffet. While I was consuming that
trifling refection the young man and his sister joined me. The girl
was taciturn as before, but her brother talked cheerfully as he sipped
chocolate; he told me that his name was Watts, and he introduced his
sister. He had a pleasant but rather weak face, and as for his manner
and bearing, I could not decide in my own mind whether he was a
gentleman or a buyer from some London drapery warehouse on his way to
the city of modes. He gave no information as to his profession or
business, and as I had not even returned his confidence by revealing
my name, this was not to be wondered at.
"Are you going on to Paris?" he said presently.
"Yes; and the sooner I get there the better I shall be pleased."
"Exactly," he smiled. "I am going, too. I have crossed the Channel
many times, but I have never before had such an experience as last
night's."
Then we began to compare notes of previous voyages, until a railway
official entered the buffet with a raucous, "Voyageurs pour Paris, en
voiture."
There was only one first-class carriage, and into this I immediately
jumped, and secured a corner. Mr. Watts followed me, and took the
other corner of the same seat. Miss Watts remained on the platform. It
was a corridor carriage, and the corridor happened to be on the far
side from the platform. Mr. Watts went out to explore the corridor. I
arranged myself in my seat, placed the jewel-case by my side, and my
mackintosh over my knees. Miss Watts stood idly in front of the
carriage door, tapping the platform with her umbrella.
"You do not accompany your brother, then?" I ventured.
"No. I'm staying in Calais, where I have an--an engagement." She
smiled plaintively at me.
Mr. Watts came back into the compartment, and, standing on the step,
said good-by to his sister, and embraced her. She kissed him
affectionately. Then, having closed the carriage door, he stolidly
resumed his seat, which was on the other side away from the door. We
had the compartment to ourselves.
"A nice girl," I reflected.
The train whistled, and a porter ran along to put the catches on all
the doors.
"Good-by; we're off," I said to Miss Watts.
"Monsieur," she said, and her face seemed to flush in the cold morning
light,--"monsieur." Was she, then, French, to address me like that?
She made a gesture as if she would say something to me of importance,
and I put my head out of the window.
"May I ask you to keep an eye on my brother?" she whispered.
"In what way?" I asked, somewhat astonished.
The train began to move, and she walked to keep level with me.
"Do not let him drink at any of the railway buffets on the journey; he
will be met at the Gare du Nord. He is addicted--"
"But how can I stop him if he wants to--"
She had an appealing look, and she was running now to keep pace with
the train.
"Ah, do what you can, sir. I ask it as a favor. Pardon the request
from a perfect stranger."
I nodded acquiescence, and, waving a farewell to the poor girl, sank
back into my seat. "This is a nice commission!" I thought.
Mr. Watts was no longer in his corner. Also my jewel-case was gone.
"A deliberate plant!" I exclaimed; and I could not help admiring the
cleverness with which it had been carried out.
I rushed into the corridor, and looked through every compartment; but
Mr. Watts, whom I was to keep from drunkenness, had utterly departed.
Then I made for the handle of the communication cord. It had been
neatly cut off. The train was now travelling at a good speed, and the
first stop would be Amiens. I was too ashamed of my simplicity to give
the news of my loss to the other passengers in the carriage.
"Very smart indeed!" I murmured, sitting down, and I smiled--for,
after all, I could afford to smile.