It seemed solid enough. I leaned for an instant over the rail on the
quarter away from the landing-stage, and there, at the foot of the
high precipice formed by the side of the vessel, was the wavy water.
A self-important, self-confident man standing near me lighted a black
cigar of unseemly proportions, and threw the match into the water. The
match was lost at once in the waves, which far below beat up futilely
against the absolutely unmoved precipice. I had never been on such a
large steamer before. I said to myself: “This is all right.”
However, that was not the moment to go into ecstasies over the solidity
of the steamer. I had to secure a place for myself. Hundreds of people
on the illimitable deck were securing places for themselves. And many
of them were being aided by porters or mariners. The number of people
seemed to exceed the number of seats; it certainly exceeded the number
of nice sheltered corners. I picked up my portmanteau with one hand
and my bag and my sticks and my rug with the other. Then I dropped
the portmanteau. A portmanteau has the peculiar property of possessing
different weights. You pick it up in your bedroom, and it seems a
feather. You say to yourself: “I can carry that easily--save tips to
porters.” But in a public place its weight changes for the worse with
every yard you walk. At twenty yards it weighs half a ton. At forty
yards no steam-crane could support it. You drop it. Besides, the
carrying of it robs your movements of all grace and style. Well, I
had carried that bag myself from the cab to the steamer, across the
landing-stage, and up the gangway. Economy! I had spent a shilling on a
useless magazine, and I grudged three pence to a porter with a wife and
family! I was wearing a necktie whose price represented the upkeep of
the porter and his wife and family for a full twenty-four hours, and yet
I wouldn’t employ the porter to the tune of threepence. Economy! These
thoughts flashed through my head with the rapidity of lightning.
You see, I could not skip about for a deck-chair with that portmanteau
in my hand. But if I left it lying on the deck, which was like a street...
well, thieves, professional thieves, thieves who specialise in
departing steamers! They nip off with your things while you are looking
for a chair; the steamer bell sounds; and there you are! Nevertheless, I
accepted the horrid risk and left all my belongings in the middle of the
street.
*****
Not a free chair, not a red deck-chair, not a corner! There were seats
by the rail at one extremity of the boat, and at the other extremity
of the boat, but no chair to be had. Thousands of persons reclining
in chairs, and thousands of others occupied by bags, fugs, and
bonnet-boxes, but no empty chair.
“Want a deck-chair, governor?” a bearded mariner accosted me.
[Illustration: 0389]
Impossible to conceal from him that I did. But, being perhaps the ship’s
carpenter, was he going to manufacture a chair for me on the spot? I
knew not how he did it, but in about thirty seconds he produced a chair
out of the entrails of the ship, and fixed it for me in a beautiful
situation, just forward of the funnel, and close to a charming young
woman, and a little deck-house in front for protection! It was exactly
what I wanted; the most stationary part of the entire vessel.
Sixpence! Economy! Still, I couldn’t give him less. Moreover, I only had
two pence in coppers.
“What will the voyage be like?” I asked him with false jollity, as he
touched his cap.
“Grand, sir!” he replied enthusiastically.
Yes, and if I had given him a shilling the voyage would have been the
most magnificent and utterly perfect voyage that ship ever made.
No sooner was I comfortably installed in that almost horizontal
deck-chair than I was aware of a desire to roam about, watch the
casting-off and the behaviour of the poor stay-at-home crowd on the
landing-stage; a very keen desire. But I would not risk the portmanteau
again. Nothing should part us till the gangways were withdrawn. Absurd,
of course! Human nature is absurd.... I caught the charming young
woman’s eye about a dozen times. The ship got fuller and fuller. With
mean and paltry joy I perceived other passengers seeking for chairs and
not finding them, and I gazed at them with haughty superiority. Then a
fiendish, an incredible, an appalling screech over my head made me
jump in a silly way quite unworthy of a man who is reclining next to
a charming young woman, and apt to prejudice him in her eyes. It was
merely the steamer announcing that we were off. I. sprang up, trying to
make the spring seem part of the original jump. I looked. And lo! The
whole landing-stage with all the people and horses and cabs was moving
backwards, floating clean away; while the enormous ship stood quite
still! A most singular effect!
*****
In a minute we were in the middle of the river, and my portmanteau was
safe. I left it in possession of the chair.
The next strange phenomenon of my mental condition was an extraordinary
curiosity in regard to the ship. I had to explore it. I had to learn all
about it. I began counting the people on the deck, but soon after I had
come to the man with the unseemly black cigar I lost count. Then I went
downstairs. There seemed to be staircases all over the place. You could
scarcely move without falling down a staircase. And I came to another
deck also full of people and bags, and fitted with other staircases
that led still lower. And on the sloping ceiling of one of these lower
staircases I saw the Board of Trade certificate of the ship. A most
interesting document. It gave the tonnage as 2,000, and the legal
number of passengers as about the same; and it said there were over two
thousand life-belts on board, and room on the eight boats for I don’t
remember how many shipwrecked voyagers. It even gave the captain’s
Christian name. You might think that this would slake my curiosity. But,
no! It urged me on. Lower down--somewhere near the caverns at the bottom
of the sea, I came across marble halls, upholstered in velvet, where at
snowy tables people were unconcernedly eating steaks and drinking tea. I
said to myself “At such and such an hour I will come down here and have
tea. It will break the monotony of the voyage.” Looking through the
little round windows of the restaurant I saw strips of flying green.
Then I thought: “The engines!” And somehow the word “reciprocating” came
into my mind. I really must go and see the engines reciprocate. I had
never seen anything reciprocate, except possibly my Aunt Hilda at the
New Year, when she answered my letter of good wishes. I discovered that
many other persons had been drawn down towards the engine-room by the
attraction of the spectacle of reciprocity. And as a spectacle it was
assuredly majestic, overwhelming, and odorous. I must learn the exact
number of times those engines reciprocated in a minute, and I took out
my watch for the purpose. Other gazers at once did the same. It seemed
to be a matter of the highest importance that we should know the precise
speed of those engines. Then I espied a large brass plate which appeared
to have been affixed to the engine room in order to inform the engineers
that the ship was built by Messrs. Macconochie and Sons, of Dumbarton.
Why Dumbarton? Why not Halifax? And why must this precious information
always be staring the engineers in the face? I wondered whether “Sons”
were married, and, if so, what the relations were between Sons’ wives
and old Mrs. Macconochie. Then, far down, impossibly far down, furlongs
beneath those gesticulating steely arms, I saw a coalpit on fire and
demons therein with shovels. And all of a sudden it occurred to me that
I might as well climb up again to my own special deck.
*****
I did so. The wind blew my hat off, my hat ran half-way up the street
before I could catch it. I caught it and clung to the rail. We were
just passing a lightship; the land was vague behind; in front there was
nothing but wisps of smoke here and there. Then I saw a fishing-smack,
tossing like anything; its bows went down into the sea and then jerked
themselves fairly out of the sea, and this process went on and on
and on. And although I was not aboard the smack, it disconcerted me.
However, I said to myself, “How glad I am to be on a nice firm steamer,
instead of on that smack!” I looked at my watch again. We seemed to
have been away from England about seven days, but it was barely
three-quarters of an hour. The offensive man with the cigar went
swaggering by. And then a steward came up out of the depths of the sea
with a tray full of glasses of beer, and a group of men lolling in deck
chairs started to drink this beer. I cared not for the sight. I said
to myself, “I will go and sit down.” And as I stepped forward the deck
seemed to sink away ever so slightly. A trifle! Perhaps a delusion on
my part! Surely nothing so solid as that high road of a deck could
sink away! Having removed my portmanteau from my chair, I sat down. The
charming girl was very pale, with eyes closed. Possibly asleep I Many
people had the air of being asleep. Every chair was now occupied. Still,
dozens of boastful persons were walking to and fro, pretending to have
the easy sea-legs of Lord Charles Beresford. The man with the atrocious
cigar (that is, another atrocious cigar) swung by. Hateful individual!
“You wait a bit!” I said to him (in my mind). “You’ll see!”
I, too, shut my eyes, keeping very still. A grand voyage! Certainly, a
grand voyage! Then I woke up. I had been asleep. It was tea-time. But
I would not have descended to that marble restaurant for ten thousand
pounds. For the first time I was indifferent to tea in the afternoon.
However, after another quarter of an hour, I had an access of courage.
I rose. I walked to the rail. The horizon was behaving improperly. I
saw that I had made a mistake. But I dared not move. To move would have
been death. I clung to the rail. There was my chair five yards off, but
as inaccessible as if it had been five miles off. Years passed. Pale I
must have been, but I retained my dignity. More years rolled by. Then,
by accident, I saw what resembled a little cloud on the horizon.
It was the island! The mere sight of the island gave me hope and
strength, and cheek.
In half an hour--you will never guess it--I was lighting a cigarette,
partly for the benefit of the charming young woman, and partly to show
that offensive man with the cigars that he was not the Shah of Persia.
He had not suffered. Confound him!