ON A ROLLING SEA
WHEN the band ceased playing, Miss Landon’s father had closed his
eyes and had doubtless forgotten that his daughter had mentioned the
conductor of the snow-bound train in which they had once travelled.
But she had not forgotten, and now sat musing on the past and dreaming
of the future. The sea was dead calm, and but for the vibration of the
ship, caused by the machinery, and the slight lifting and lowering
of the huge vessel as she ploughed through the ocean, one might have
fancied that she was riding at anchor. The sun shone dimly through an
autumn haze. Here and there the curving spine of a leaping porpoise
split the surface of the silver sea, that lay like a great drop of
molten lead. Far out toward the banks a whale was spouting like a
hose at a fire. Now the big liner turns from her path to nose about
an old scow that is drifting, bottom side up, with the current of
the sea. A half-dozen gulls with steady wing stand above the stern of
the ship. Some of the passengers are walking, some are dozing, others
are reading, and all are apparently perfectly contented. As the sun
went down the sea came up, and the big ship began to roll. When it
was dark, save for the stars that stood above the ship, she began to
pitch. One by one the women left their places and went below. When
the bugle sounded for dinner not all the men and a very few women sat
down in the great dining-hall. The neglected tables groaned under the
good things that were left untouched. The band played cheerily in the
little bower above, while the white-gloved stewards hurried out with
the empties, and came back with the nuts and pudding and electric
ice-cream. Before the meal was over the ship was rolling so that they
had to lash on the sideboards. Only one woman remained at the captain’s
table. She was a good sailor. Presently the big ship lifted her nose
until all the people held on to the tables, and then she gave a twist
and came down on one corner. She went so low that the sea came up and
wet all the windows. It reached up to the promenade deck, leaped to the
bridge, over the ladies’ saloon, and tore away six yards of the canvas
fence, behind which the captain stands. It came along the deck, a
solid stream, two feet and a half deep. It gathered up all the steamer
chairs and drove them in a drift against the fence that marks the line
between the first and second class. The people, men and women, who had
stayed upon deck, were washed along, and piled up among the chairs. Mr.
Landon, who was a poor sailor, slid out of his chair that was lashed to
a railing that ran along the wall, and went, half bent, head first, for
the heavy fence that runs round the ship. He ran so fast, when the ship
sat on edge, that he could not straighten up, and before any one could
reach him his head hit the railing. He went down like a man under a
sandbag, and then the flood came and heaped the company’s property and
a lot of people on top of him. When the sea went down from the deck,
and they gathered the old man up he was dead,--but he came to again.
A thoughtful and sympathetic woman rushed down to the dining-saloon
and broke the news of the accident to the handsome young woman who was
smiling over a glass of champagne at the captain.
“Oh! Miss Landon! yo’ father’s dead.”
Miss Landon put down the glass and got to her feet. She swayed a bit,
and the captain steadied her. “Is that true?” she asked, gazing at the
woman.
“Well, he was; he’s better now; he--”
“Thank you. It was thoughtful of you to come and tell me.”
With the help of the captain and the chief steward (for the ship was
rolling) she passed out. She was very pale, but there was just a hint
of a smile upon her handsome face.
The sympathetic, thoughtful woman sank into a chair, and looked foolish.
When the ship’s doctor had bathed the old gentleman’s face and whipped
over the rent in his scalp, he was able to talk to his daughter.
His sister, the girl’s aunt, was helplessly seasick, and if there is
a time in a man’s life, or a woman’s life, when a man or a woman is
utterly incapable of sympathy for any human being who is foolish
enough to want to live, it is when a man or woman is helplessly seasick.
“Papa was wholly unconscious for ten minutes, auntie,” said Kate.
“Oh, how glorious! If I could only put this--umph! horrid--Oh! ship and
this heaving, tossing sea, and every--umph! thing and everybody out of
my mind, and then get out myself, for ten minutes, I’d strangle the
doctor who brought me back to this miserable, howling, rolling, watery
old world.”
In spite of her troubles (she was not feeling any too fit herself)
Miss Landon laughed at this pessimistic tirade from her usually
even-tempered aunt.