THE STEERAGE PASSENGER.
"Pray you sit by us, and tell's a tale."
_Twelfth Night._
"MRS. HOME and party" were to be seen in the list of names of those
who sailed from Calcutta in the steamer _Palestine_ on 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 and
invocations 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 was _really_ in 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 England _unmarried_. They shrugged their shoulders, lifted
their eyebrows, and wondered to one another whether it was because
_she_ was 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 gentlemen
_en route_ from 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 the _Palestine_. 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 his
experiences of the Mutiny, a subaltern his first exploit out after
tigers, but the most popular _raconteur_ of 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 the _Black 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 as _I_ was 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 it _was_—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 was _again_, 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 really
too 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 to _me_, or to any one who is near, but he never seems to catch
any one's eyes but _mine_! 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
very _idea_ of 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 of
witnesses who had all _seen_ it, 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 home
before 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 the
_Palestine_ have a ghost of her own, as well as the _Black 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,—I _know_ he 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 the _Palestine_ arrived 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 beholding _two_ cabs, 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 is _expected_."
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, and
watched those familiar trunks, turning a corner,—that her last link
with the Andamans, and all her recent life, was now broken.