Saturday, August 27. Left Paris with H., the rest of our party having
been detained. Reached Boulogne in safety, and in high spirits made
our way on board the steamer, deposited our traps below, came on deck,
and prepared for the ordeal. A high north-wester had been blowing all
day, and as we ran along behind the breakwater, I could see over it
the white and green waves fiendishly running, and showing their malign
eyes sparkling with hungry expectation. "Come out, come out!" they
seemed to say; "come out, you little black imp of a steamer; don't be
hiding behind there like a coward. We dare you to come out here and
give us a chance at you--we will eat you up, as so many bears would
eat a lamb."
And sure enough, the moment her bows passed beyond the pier, the sea
struck her, and tossed her like an eggshell, and the deck, from stem
to stern, was drenched in a moment, and running with floods as if she
had been under water. For a few moments H. and I both enjoyed the
motion. We stood amidships, she in her shawl, I in a great tarpauling
which I had borrowed of Jack, and every pitch sent the spray over us.
We exulted that we were not going to be sick. Suddenly, however, so
suddenly that it was quite mysterious, conscience smote me. A
profound, a deep-seated remorse developed itself just exactly in the
deepest centre of the pit of my stomach.
"H.," said I, with a decided, grave air, "I'm going to be seasick."
"So am I," said she, as if struck by the same convictions that had
been impressed on me. We turned, and made our way along the leeward
quarter, to a seat by the bulwarks. I stood holding on by the
railrope, and every now and then addressing a few incoherent and
rather guttural, not to say pectoral, remarks to the green and gloomy
sea, as I leaned over the rail. After every paroxysm of
communicativeness, (for in seasickness the organ of secretiveness
gives way,) I regained my perpendicular, and faced the foe, with a
determination that I would stand it through--that the grinning,
howling brine should get no more secrets out of me. And, in fact, it
did not.
Meanwhile, what horrors--what complicated horrors--did not that
crowded deck present! Did the priestly miscreants of the middle ages
ever represent among the torments of purgatory the deck of a channel
steamer? If not, then they forgot the "lower deep," that Satan
doubtless thought about, according to Milton.
There were men and women of every age and complexion, with faces of
every possible shade of expression. Defiance, resolute and stern,
desperate resolves never to give in, and that very same defiant
determination sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. A deep
abyss of abdominal discontent, revealing afar the shadow, the
penumbra, of the approaching retch. And there were _bouleversements,_
and hoarse confidences to the sea of every degree of misery. The wind
was really risen quite to a gale, and the sea ran with fearful power. Two
sailors, standing near, said, "I wouldn't say it only to you, Jack, but
in all the time I've crossed this here channel, I've seen nothin' like
this."
"Nor I neither," was the reply.
About mid channel a wave struck the windward quarter, just behind the
wheel, with a stroke like a rock from a ballista, smashed in the
bulwarks, stove the boat, which fell and hung in the water by one end,
and sent the ladies, who were sitting there with boxes, baskets,
shawls, hats, spectacles, umbrellas, cloaks, down to leeward, in a
pond of water. One girl I saw with a bruise on her forehead as large
as an egg, and the blood streaming from her nostrils. Shrieks
resounded, and for a few moments, we had quite a tragic time.
About this time H. gave in, and descended to Tartarus, where the floor
was compactly, densely stowed with one mass of heaving wretches, with
nothing but washbowls to relieve the sombre mosaic. How H. fared there
she may tell; I cannot. I stood by the bulwark with my boots full of
water, my eyes full of salt spray, and my heart full of the most
poignant regret that ever I was born. Alas! was that channel a channel
at all? Had it two shores? Was England over there, where I saw nothing
but monstrous, leaping, maddening billows, saying, "We are glad of it;
we want you; come on here; we are waiting for you; we will serve you
up"?
At last I seriously began to think of Tartarus myself, and of a calm
repose flat on my back, such as H. told of in his memorable passage.
But just then, dim and faint on the horizon, I thought I discerned the
long line of a bank of land. It was. This was a channel; that was the
shore. England had not sunk. I stood my ground; and in an hour we came
running, bounding, and rolling towards the narrow mouth of the
Folkstone pier heads.