ON BOARD THE STEAMSHIP RODWELL.
The passenger steamboat _Rodwell_ left Daneford on that evening of the
17th of August, 1866, at the usual time, with an average number of
passengers for the season and her ordinary crew. She was a saloon boat,
and licensed to carry three hundred and fifty passengers between
Daneford and Seacliff. As a matter of fact she never, except on very
rare occasions, had more than half that number on board. Her crew, all
told, were fifteen; and on the evening of the 17th of August, 1866, she
carried about one hundred and twenty passengers.
The saloon-deck was abaft the paddle-boxes, and after-deck passengers
had access to the saloon and bridge as well as the after-deck; the
fore-deck passengers were confined to the fore-deck and the fore-cabin,
the latter being a dull, cheerless, dreary place, where no one ever
thought of going, unless in bad weather.
Smoking was allowed on the fore-deck to the second-class passengers, but
not in the fore-cabin. On neither the saloon-deck, nor in the saloon
itself, was smoking permitted; but all smoking Daneford declared that,
in the whole world, there could be found no place or circumstances under
which a cigar might be tasted with such plenteous peace and enjoyment as
upon the bridge of the _Rodwell_, while she steamed down the broad
placid Weeslade of a fine summer's evening.
Although Daneford was not a straitlaced city, there was a good deal of
solid propriety in the character of its people. Judged by criminal
statistics, it was rather worse than the average city of its size; but
if a little prodigal in its crimes, it was discreet and prudent in its
sins. If it cheated, it cheated in a legitimate and business-like
manner. If it got drunk, it did not brawl. Whatever wicked thing it did,
it kept under the rose. So that it enjoyed the double advantage of being
highly estimated for its virtue, without allowing itself the unpleasant
deprivations which the pursuit of virtue requires.
As regards smoking, Daneford observed one rule in the year 1866, and of
that rule a single breach could not be proved against a single resident
of the city. The rule was that no man should, while walking through the
streets of Daneford in company with a lady, give the death-blow to
chivalry and light a cigar.
The mere fact that on the bridge of the _Rodwell_ smoking was allowed
secured it against the remotest chance of female incursion. The most
respectable maiden ladies, who had ceased to be giddy with youth, made
it a practice to look as little as possible at that bridge, and, if they
could, to sit with their backs to it.
Just forward of the bridge, on the main deck, were the steward's pantry
and the cook's galley. The passage between the forward house on deck and
the paddle-boxes being very narrow, the view from the fore to the after
deck was so much interrupted as practically to be cut off.
Under the bridge, amidships, were the engines; aft of the engines, the
engine-room and stoke-hole, all in one; and farther aft still, the
furnaces and boilers.
All first-class lady passengers, whether escorted by men or alone,
confined themselves to the after-deck and the saloon.
The defect which had been discovered in the boiler had not become a
matter of general knowledge. No one in either Daneford or Seacliff knew
anything about it, except a few persons connected with the steamer and
the company's office.
There was no railway from the city to the little town, but an omnibus
and a coach went daily in and out, the distance between the two places
being, by road, not half the distance by water.
The road was no longer a rival of the river as a highway between the two
places; but if public faith got cool in the riverway, people might fall
back upon the road, which of old had enjoyed the monopoly. Nothing could
more effectually shake public faith in the water-way than a suspicion
that weakness or defect existed in the steamer. Therefore the fact that
the boilers of the _Rodwell_ exhibited unfavourable symptoms had been
kept a profound secret, and on the 17th of August no passenger on board
the boat had the shadow of a suspicion anything was wrong.
Steadily the steamboat held her course down the Weeslade that lovely
August evening.
A man with a fiddle at the bow struck up a lively air, and in a few
minutes some of the younger and gayer of the forward passengers stood up
and began to dance.
The men smoking on the bridge drew near the rail, and looked down with
smiles of quiet cordiality upon the dancers.
Then a man with a large white hat, blackened face, huge white
shirt-collar, blue-and-white calico coat, red waistcoat, and check-linen
trousers approached the fiddler; and having whispered to the fiddler,
the latter brought the dance-music to a stop, and the nigger minstrel
stepped out into the open space just quitted by the dancers, and sang a
pathetic song.
This won great applause, and caused some of the women to weep.
Then the fiddler changed the tune into one of sly and artful purport;
and the nigger, assuming an attitude and a manner of audacious drollery,
sang a song of such comical force that all the forward passengers
greeted the end of each verse with roars of laughter, forgetting, in
their own enjoyment, to applaud the singer: a form of commendation doing
much more homage to the performer than all the cool and calculating
approval that accepts and adopts the dry formula of hand smiting hand as
a mark of satisfaction. So successful was this song that some of the
critical loungers on the bridge turned to others and said, "Not half so
bad," in a tone indicating the possession of responsible critical
discernment and chivalric honour in the interests of truth.
Among the men on the bridge was a merchant of Daneford accompanied by a
nephew, a young lad from the country who had come on a first visit to
the city; to him the merchant was indicating the various objects of
interest they passed on the way down.
"This," said the merchant, pointing, "is the Foundery. Although it is
called the Foundery, it is in reality, as you see, a dockyard fer
building iron steamers. The last one launched was 2,500 tons register.
"That is the Cove, and there bathing is allowed all day long. The water
is not clear, and the bottom is very muddy; but in the hot weather
city-folk of the lower order are not nice in such matters. We haven't
any clear streams or mill-ponds such as you have in the country.
"That is the Glashouse over there, and this part of the river is called
Glashouse Reach.
"Farther down you see a windmill on a headland; that headland is called
Windmill Head, and that large white house in the glen there is Windmill
Hall, the residence of Colonel Wood Maitland, who distinguished himself
in the Crimean War. A Cossack thrust at Maitland's colonel, who was
wounded and propped up against a dead trooper's dead horse. Captain Wood
Maitland (he was only a captain then) lifted the Cossack's lance with an
up-cut. The Cossack wheeled, thrust at the captain; the lance caught the
captain in the left forearm, and the shaft being wounded by the up sword
cut, broke off two feet from the head, and stuck in the captain's
forearm. The captain was borne down. The Cossack wheeled again and
drew. Captain Maitland had lost his sword in the fall. The Cossack rode
up, brandishing his sword and making again for the wounded colonel, who
lay helpless against the belly of the dead horse. Captain Maitland was
now unarmed and wounded. A few paces in advance of the captain was a
large fragment of a shell; he rose, picked this up, and, at the moment
the Cossack was within a few yards of the wounded colonel, threw the
piece of the shell with all his force, and struck the horse on the head,
causing the horse to swerve and the rider to lose his cut. As the
Cossack swept by Captain Maitland pulled the lance-head out of his left
forearm, and thrust it through the bowels of the Cossack, who rode on a
little and then tumbled out of his saddle. But that was only one of a
dozen or more brave things Maitland did.
"That snug little cottage under the slope on the other shore is where
Samuel Sholl, the richest merchant in Daneford, lives. He is a Quaker,
and many men of five hundred a year have finer houses. But this one is
the most beautifully kept in the neighbourhood.
"If you look right ahead now you will see the Island. Its name is
Warfinger. On the top of the hill in the Island is the Castle. Sir
Alexander Midharst lives there. He has a fine property, worth more than
twenty thousand a year; but he is a miser, and saves up nineteen out of
every twenty pounds of his income.
"Wat Grey, the banker, a very rich man too, takes care of all Sir
Alexander's money. The Castle is old, as you see, and has a deserted,
lonely look.
"Wat Grey lives at the Manor, in the Manor House, another queer house,
and he has called the two houses the Weird Sisters. You see that round
tower. Now you can see it better as we come in front of the archway to
the Castle-yard, the western tower. Well, they used to say it was
haunted by the ghost of one of the wives of the family which owned it
before the Midharsts came into the property. There's a tower on the
Manor also, and no doubt you have heard or read of places in the
East--China, I think, or maybe Rangoon--where they put their dead on the
top of towers, called the Towers of Silence. The carrion birds eat off
the flesh, and the bones fall through a grating. Well, Wat Grey calls
these two towers the Towers of Silence.
"That level plain of grass-land between the river and these hills is
called the Plain of Spears. A great number of spear-heads have been
found there from time to time, and until quite lately it was supposed a
battle must have been fought there. But although bones of cows and
sheep have been discovered, no human bones ever turn up, and no one has
been able to account for the spear-heads. You shall see many of those
spear-heads in the rooms of the Weeslade Scientific Institute to-morrow.
"In that little creek there, Glastenbury Cove, three boys were drowned
last year. A boat capsized in a squall of wind, and none of the three
boys could swim; so they were all drowned.
"That large yellow house at the top of the dip of land is the Hon.
Skeldemere Istelshore's. He is the brother of an earl, and a violent
Radical. He has a large property hereabouts, and farms two thousand
acres himself.
"The sun is getting down now. Twilight is the pleasantest time on the
river at this season. Now, if you look back, you will see as pretty a
view as there is on the whole of the Weeslade, Don't the pasture and
park lands look well with the hills behind them, and dead astern, in the
throat of the river, Warfinger Island with its hill, and on the top of
the hill the old Castle standing out sharp against the sky, with the
Tower of Silence highest of all?
"By-the-way, in a moment you will see why people got a superstitious
feeling about that tower. Right in our wake is the Castle, and we are
steering right into the sun. We could not be better placed to see the
witch's fire dance on the tower. The sun is just dipping. Now watch the
tower. There! Did you see that? That flash on the top of the tower?
That's what the people call the witch's fire. There it is again, now. I
never saw it brighter--never. Look again. The boat is right in the track
of the sun, and the wash of the paddles makes the light flicker. I never
saw----"
At that instant he ceased to speak--for ever. An iron bar struck him at
the throat, severing the head from the body, and killing also a man who
stood behind him.
The after end of the bridge was flung upward, and all upon it, the
living and the dead, were shot down upon the fore-deck.
Coal and planks and wreck of the saloon, and bodies of those who had
been on the after-deck and in the saloon, toiled upward a moment in a
dense cloud of steam and water, hung a moment suspended in air, while a
dull groaning sound spread abroad from the steamer. Then all descended
again, falling upon the ruined boat, upon the placid water, with thud
and hiss and shriek.
For a second all was still.
Then a dull groan from those forward. Then screams and yells when it was
plain the shell of the boat could not float more than a few seconds.
About fifty people were still alive.
The wreck made a drive astern. The water washed over the fore-deck, and,
striking the forward bulwark, laid the steamer on an even keel for a
breath's space.
Then the water rushed aft once more, and in a stern-board the stern went
under water, the boat fell over to star-board, swung half-way back
again, and then heeled steadily over and went down.
The boiler of the _Rodwell_ had burst, and the steamer _Rodwell_ had
gone down before any one who still survived had had time to jump
overboard.