TROPICAL EVENINGS.
Our voyagers thought they had already known something of torrid heat, but
the next few days was to show that, as yet, they had only begun to
appreciate it; for there is but one hotter zone on earth than this in
which the Red Sea lies, and that contains the Persian Gulf and Senegambia.
As they steamed into the Suez Canal, upon leaving uninteresting Port
Said, every one was brought to the decks by curiosity and interest. This
world-renowned ditch, which has revolutionized the commerce and travel of
the whole earth, begins with much breadth and promise, but soon narrows
down to a watery roadway, scarcely wider than a city street, where
meeting vessels cannot pass, except as one hugs the siding, and at night
the "International" was obliged to "tie up," as the captain expressed it,
that there need be no danger of collisions.
Its great propelling screw churned the narrow stream into waves that wore
away the sandy banks on either side, and the cries of the flamingoes,
storks, and pelicans, inhabiting the marshes, were constantly in the ears
of the deck loungers.
Dwight, perhaps, was the one who wrested the most fun from the situation,
for while the rest soon grew weary of the monotony, and lethargic with
the heat, groaning aloud every time they had to seek the siding in order
to let some great train of laden boats go by, he found fresh enjoyment in
every stop, and in blouse and knickerbockers, with bare feet, paddled
about on the moist banks, making friends with the half-clothed
camel-drivers, whose patient beasts knelt so obediently to be loaded with
the silt deposits taken from the bed of the canal, and collecting items
of interest in regard to this artery of commerce which might have made
even its founder open his eyes. The girls profited by his researches,
and it was, indeed, a common thing for any passenger, when asking
questions about "De Lessep's Ditch," to hear, "Oh, ask Dwight! He knows
it all."
Both here, and on the Red Sea, into which they entered on the third
morning, the staterooms and cabins, in spite of waving punkahs, were
almost intolerable, and nobody could get up life enough to do more than
lounge feebly on the upper decks in their lightest clothing, reading the
lightest literature. At night, mattresses were laid on deck, and most of
the men slept there, while our twin sisters gladly took to their father's
cabin floor and a folded comforter, with the great windows wide to catch
every breath of air.
Hemmed in upon these sluggish waters, swept by no wide sea breeze, but
only by an occasional sluggish puff from the sun-dried deserts of the
shore, they realized fully what torrid heat means. This long stretch of
southern travel is perhaps the most wearisome part of the long journey,
yet there were sometimes scenes and sights of the dark hours that almost
compensated. One night, there was a phosphorescent and electrical
display that could never be forgotten. The sultry air was surcharged
with the magic fluid, which made itself evident in most unexpected ways
and places. Points of dull iron about the steamer would suddenly break
into a soft glow, like an astral lamp silently lighted by unseen hands;
certain fabrics crackled fiercely at the touch, and soft waves of light
flitted over exposed surfaces, only half perceived till gone. The slow
moving waves of the sea glowed and sparkled in phosphorescent fire, and
the sky was a constantly changing curtain, upon which were thrown lights
and shadows, rays and wrinkles of every hue. Far above, in the deep
blue-black of the wonderful canopy, blazed the brilliant Southern
constellations--the Cross gleaming in white splendor midway between
horizon and zenith.
The girls, grouped with others, watched well into the nights, that were
too hot for sleep, and in these still, solemn watches small resentments
were forgotten, and friendships that could not be bounded by an ocean
voyage, grew apace.
While the younger passengers enjoyed with little care, the older, finding
deeper significance in Nature's wonders, also watched and waited. Before
they had left the Canal, however, Lady Moreham, with Faith's forgotten
envelope in her pocket, sought Captain Hosmer on one of those breathless
evenings when he fretted from inaction, and asked abruptly,
"Captain, do you remember Clara?"
"Your sister? Certainly. She was a little girl when we were young folks
together."
"Yes, but only four years younger, after all, and the dearest child! We
corresponded for years until--my trouble."
The captain eyed her with an amused smile.
"It seems a little strange to hear you call it that!"
"But what else was it? The bitterest trouble!"
"So it seems--yes. But how did you so completely lose sight of your
family?"
"I stopped writing. They had no address. There were only Jane and Clara
left, and Jane was absorbed in her own family. I sometimes think Clara
might have understood and helped me; she was different from the rest and
so fond of me."
"It was a foolish thing to cut yourself off so thoroughly, my friend."
"You don't need to tell me that--but neither can you ever understand how
my pride was wounded, and how mortifying it was, after all my boasts of
the glories in store for us, to have to confess what I was subjected to,
that I might be fit to live among their high-mightinesses!"
"It certainly was hard, but was it right to let them think that, perhaps,
you had become too proud to associate with your own family?"
"Oh, I know, I know, it was a horrid thing to do, and I have been well
punished for it, but I felt, in my resentful shame, that I wanted to fly
from every one who had ever known me. It was so belittling--so
despicable! Some trials make us nobler, and awaken the sympathy of our
friends; other excite only ridicule. Mine were utterly ridiculous and
common to others though bitter to me. But I have suffered through my
pride--oh, how I have suffered!"
"You were always given to exaggerating things Anna--beg pardon! Lady----"
"No, no, use the old name--I like it! Aren't you the one friend left me?
I want no titles from you. They are worse than nonsense between such
life-long friends. And what a 'sounding brass' any title of mine must
seem to you, anyhow! But we're wandering from the subject. My sister
Clara wrote a peculiar hand, plain, large, and straight up and down, yet
rather handsome. I've never seen writing just like it--until a few days
ago--and after turning the matter over and over to no purpose, I
concluded to come to you. An envelope addressed to the Misses Hosmer,
and postmarked Portsmouth, England was blown along the deck to my side,
lately, and when I absently picked it up it was, apparently, to see my
sister's writing before me. I asked your daughter Faith who wrote that
address, and she said a lodger of her old nurse's, but could not tell the
name--had forgotten it. But she described my sister, Clara Leroy, as
perfectly as I could. What does it mean? More than that, she said she
and Hope both thought her an American. Is it possible my own Clara may
be hunting me up in England? It seems too good to believe!"
"It is strange!" assented the captain, with some excitement. "And to
think my girls have forgotten her name--what a pity! But they must
remember it. I'll set their wits at work. Your sister! Why, this is
like a story."
"It is better than that; it means life and hope to me. Oh, if I am
deceiving myself!" sighed the lady. "That is what has made me hesitate
about speaking to you--I was so afraid it was only my imagination, and I
could not bear to think of disappointment. But the more I study the
writing the surer I am. Every time I look at that envelope I feel surer
and safer! You don't know how it braces me to bear with Duncan's
strangeness."
"Why 'strangeness'? I thought we had agreed that his letters have simply
been lost, and, if he is in India, he will be as glad to see you as you
him, didn't we?"
"Oh, if I could be certain of that!"
"I shouldn't allow myself to think anything else."
"It is so easy to talk when it is not our own trouble!"
The captain smiled patiently.
"Did you keep that envelope?"
"Yes. Faith didn't seem to notice."
"That is right. And I'll think it over. We can mail a letter at
Ismailia, but no answer could reach you until we get to Bombay. I
suppose we might wire, but we only stop, there--dear me! I keep
forgetting we have no address except Debby's, and she would go all to
pieces over a telegram. Do you know whether Clara's still single?"
"No, I don't."
"Sort of a wild-goose chase, at the best! It will have to be a letter, I
guess."
"How a small difficulty looms into a fate in a case like this! I must
cling to this clue, though, till convinced it is a false one; I cannot
give it up so lightly."
"Of course not. And I'll think up something--trust me. Why don't you
write yourself, Anna? Make it a note that would mean something to Clara,
and nothing to others, and I'll send it to Debby, putting in a line
myself. That will be best, and then we need not say anything to the
girls, as you are so anxious to keep it all from them."
She bent her head in meditation.
"I was, at first, because I did not know them; now I do not so much care.
They are lovely girls, my friend, and so sensible! There comes Hope
now--I recognize her laugh. Well, help me in this, and you will but
forge another link in the long chain of favors I owe you. Good-night!"
"None o' that, now! I don't keep a log-book on little kindnesses--just
pass 'em along down the line, say I. And don't you give up the ship, my
lady! That's good sailor-like advice! Good-night to you, and good luck!"
The proposed plan was carried out, and the double enclosure quietly
mailed at the Arabic town upon Lake Timseh, which looked so fresh and
green to the wearied eyes of our friends, after the dismal marshes and
clayey banks of the canal. But all beauty has its blemishes, and the
other name for this lake suggests the blemish on Ismailia's shores. It
is "Crocodile Pool," and our young people spent their time mainly in
watching a couple of these monster saurians as they stolidly followed the
steamer, through the whole day, eagerly snapping up the refuse of the
caboose in their great ugly-looking jaws.
Without event, or incident, they steamed through Bab-el-Mandib, by the
lighthouse on Perim, and eastward across the Gulf of Aden. As for the
town of that name, on its northern shore, opinions were divided. Faith
shuddered at its desolation, Hope thought it bold and striking, while Mr.
Lawrence said that, "If Dante had seen it he would have been saved a deal
of trouble, for he could simply have described its rocky wilds for his
Inferno!" All blessed the fresher atmosphere and brisker breezes of the
Indian Ocean, which, if warm, are bearable, and awoke from the lethargy
of a sultriness which was like that of an overheated, airless room, to
life and interest, once more.
It was nearing night, after a day of intense calm, with the mercury close
upon the century mark, and the passengers, eager for air, crowded the
upper decks. The captain stood long, with glass in hand, scanning the
horizon, and made his dinner a short affair.
"Do you know," said Faith, glancing up at the twilight sky, "there's a
strange feeling in the atmosphere, to-night? I can't tell what it is,
but, though it is so sultry that I can scarcely breathe, at times a cold
shiver runs down my spine, and I believe it is dread, or fear."
"Goodness!" said Hope, turning to look at her, "you're not going to have
a fever, are you?"
"I hope not," said Chester Carnegie, with a laugh, "for I've felt the
same."
"Sympathetic suggestion possibly," mused Mr. Lawrence, with an absent
air, as he leaned over the guard-rail.
"Well, I feel oppressed, too," observed Bess, looking moodily seawards.
"I wouldn't wonder if something is brooding over us. A big storm, or--"
"More sharks," suggested Dwight.
"I always supposed they were under us--that is, the sea kind," put in Mr.
Allyne, appearing out of the dusk, accompanied by his friend. "Of course
there are land sharks, but--"
"Not on this ship!" cried Hope promptly.
"Glad to have my fears relieved," flashing a glance at her.
"And, if you'll let me, I was going to say storm, or pestilence,"
continued Bess in a resigned tone.
"Well, I stopped worrying over that when my sick man kindly refrained
from developing smallpox, or ship fever," said Carnegie, sinking down
upon a cushion between Bess and Faith. "I was anxious for a day or two,
though, and so was our surgeon."
"And he is quite well again?" asked Mrs. Vanderhoff.
"Convalescing, thank you. We consider him entirely out of--Ah! that was
vivid."
He referred to a flash of lightning that seemed to rend the heavens,
followed by a terrific report that made the girls cower close together.
"There _is_ going to be a storm," exclaimed Mr. Lawrence, coining close
to the group. "I would not wonder if it is a fierce one, too. There has
been a strangeness in the air for the past half hour, as the girls have
remarked. Shall we go inside?"
"Oh, not yet," said Mrs. Vanderhoff, "What a delicious little breeze!"
She turned to catch it full in the face, and gasped as she pointed to the
horizon. At the same instant the lookout sounded a warning, echoed by a
quick command from the bridge, and instantly all was activity on board.
Mr. Malcolm, as he hurried past the group, called out,
"Run for the saloon! It's a cyclone," and there was an immediate
stampede below, while the Hindu boys ran nimbly about the decks, stowing
away chairs and furling awnings.
Our girls sought shelter with the rest, in the main saloon, and amid its
brilliant lights and merry company could scarcely believe in that one
swift, southward glance at the strange fast-coming gloom, under which the
waves were beginning to seethe, in the distance. There had been one
appalling cloud driving upwards in their very faces, with pall-black
centers, and edges of cold gray that seemed to curl and writhe like giant
lips, intense with scorn and rage.
But sound remained to them, if sight was removed. As they heard the
shriek of the fierce, whirling blasts, the rush and hiss of astonished
waves whipped into terrible activity, the creaking of beams and timbers
suddenly strained to their utmost capacity, the flap and rattle of sails
furled with lightning rapidity, and, above all else, the increasing roar,
indescribably awful, that was mingled of electricity set free into wide
spaces and vapor pent into dire cloud-shapes driven by mighty winds,
whose form no man can imagine, whose might only God can guess, they grew
silent and gathered in groups, awestricken and still.
At this intense moment, when even the men looked pallid in the arc-light,
Dwight suddenly pointed down the saloon, and broke into a hysterical
giggle that seemed almost blasphemous at such a time. The next to catch
it up was Hope, and in an instant the gale of laughter within almost
equalled the gale of wind without. For, running nimbly down the long
room, came a tiny figure. Sometimes it was on two legs and sometimes on
three, the fourth extremity being occupied with a small hand-glass, which
it clutched in its left forepaw.
On its head, set disreputably awry, was a fine flower-laden bonnet, a
little evening affair, belonging to Mrs. Campbell, and around its neck
trailed a long sash-ribbon of Laura Windemere's. Out from the French
roses of the stylish hat peered the solemn old-man face of Andy, the
monkey, and he was making as fast for his beloved mistress as three feet
could carry him.
Evidently the little wretch had broken bounds and helped himself from the
neighboring staterooms. Faith, red and confused, made a dive for him,
and caught off the bonnet, but with a shrill cry he clung to the
handglass, and ran up to the top of a cabinet, where he calmly wound the
long ribbon around his swart body, and, after scolding the assembled
company for a moment or so, proceeded to admire himself in the glass,
with all the vanity of a Broadway belle.
At just this instant the storm burst with awful fury, and the great ship
careened until it was impossible to keep one's footing. Faith, watching
the mischievous monkey, as she stood in the center of the floor, was
taken unaware and flung with violence to one side, where she might have
been cruelly hurt against the hard wall, but for the amazing quickness of
Chester Carnegie, who flung himself between just in time to save her from
the blow. In the instant that he held her thus a blinding glare seemed
to wrap them in white fire, and with it a crashing peal of thunder
stunned them into deafness, then all was utter darkness.
For a second it seemed to each that earth and sea stood still, and
neither quite knew if life were still left to them, but the next instant
a cry rent the air--a cry frightful enough on land, doubly horrible on
the wide ocean--the cry of "_Fire!_"