in a handy corner my smelling-salts, and small convenient bottles of various kinds—all the time accusing myself that I had not been satisfied with the calmer view I had had of “The Islands of the Blest” from our library window; that I must need hunt the real thing by steamship; an ever impossible method, as Kipling had warned me long ago:
“That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift again
Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.
They’re just beyond the skyline, howe’er so far you cruise
In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.
“Swing round your aching search-light—’twill show no haven’s peace!
Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas!
Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest—
But you aren’t a knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest.”
I shall always believe that the force of suggestion was the cause of our undoing. When a lot of people sit down to luncheon, all with one fixed idea, with one definite question in their minds, sooner or later that question is bound to be answered in one way or another. All one has to do is simply to wait long enough and the answer will come. “Mental Science” and “Christian Science” notwithstanding, there wasn’t a soul in that dining-room but was wondering with all his faculties whether he would be or would not be. Incidentally, the ship felt the pulse of old Atlantic, and he began to be. And, as time wore on, the dining-saloon became deserted, and the question was answered. I never knew nor cared where the people went. As for myself, I took a rug, made for the warmest corner of the deck I could find, covered myself head and ears, and wanted to be alone. I was conscious that Little Blue Ribbons had tucked herself under my wing, a sad little birdling; but Sister and Daddy were very grand. They gaily walked the decks and laughed when they passed us—but we didn’t laugh! No, we didn’t even smile. The ocean had never troubled me before—that is not to any extent, for I had had a theory that if I could only keep on deck and wear a tight belt, the worst would soon be over. But there are seasons when all signs fail, and this time everything turned out wrong.
The following day I managed to dress and get upon deck with the others. Oh! if I only had a chance at a good railroad, those who would might hunt up the islands; I had had enough already. I made up my mind to one thing, I should give up my ticket at Nassau and go home alone by rail through Florida. I didn’t say anything of this plan to Daddy, but I thought it all out and had it all arranged, when I found that I could not get warm and could get so miserably seasick. I considered it a brilliant and original inspiration, and I clung to it with all my feeble strength.
Sunday it commenced to blow furiously, coming first from the southwest, and increasing as the day wore on, until by night, with the wind shifted to north of west, a howling gale was on, outer doors battened down, promenade decks swept by water, and everybody curled up in bed, bracing themselves as best they could, trying to keep from rolling out of their berths. I wish it understood that the word everybody is used reservedly, for there were a few exceptions, Daddy being one of them—cranks who prided themselves on not missing a meal. Then came that awful night! This was the time Rudolph shone. It was he who suggested champagne and ship-biscuit. Daddy didn’t know how many bottles he brought to our room, and we didn’t, until it came time to pay the bills. Then Daddy was surprised, but Rudolph wasn’t. “Rudolph,” I said, that terrible night, as he brought in the bottle, and steadied himself to pour a glassful, “were you ever in such a storm as this before; don’t you really think we’re in great danger?” He assured me that he had been in much worse storms, but I knew he hadn’t. I could tell by the way he looked that he was only trying to cheer me up, for he was dreadfully solemn, and had a big black lump on his forehead where he had hit his head as he came in with the bottle. I listened while he told of other storms ever and ever so much worse; how he had been thirty years a steward, how he swore every voyage would be his last; but how somehow he kept on shipping; he didn’t mind storms. “So you have never gone down at sea, Rudolph? Oh, I am so glad, for then you wouldn’t be here, would you?” He forgave me of course. I was not the first sufferer Rudolph had brought champagne and ship’s biscuit.
When Sister was a babe, Daddy gave her a little Jap toy, which we called the “Red Manikin.” He was round as an apple, with his face one big grin. Whichever way we stood him, Manikin would jump up serenely on his plump little legs, always smiling and jolly. But one day there came a sad ending to Manikin’s smiles. He was smashed in a nursery storm, and we found him under the bed standing straight on his head. Through snatches of sleep, my disordered dreams made a grinning, red Manikin of our ship. I wondered when the final smash would come and our big toy no longer swing back on its round legs? Over and over the great ship went, and I held my breath. “Now this time it will never come back. I know it. Oh! how terrible to have the water pour into our staterooms and never a chance to swim. No, there we go the other way. Now we go, go, go! Oh, if I wouldn’t try to keep the ship from rolling over! What good can I do by holding my breath and bracing back in this way? I wonder how the bride feels by this time? That lovely brown dress, she’ll never wear it again. Well, I’m glad I’m not a bride.”
Whatever happened just then I could not tell, but there was a curious sort of a dull explosion, and all the electric lights went out. Then our trunks broke loose and went crashing back and forth at each other, whack, bang, with a vicious delight.
“I’ll not endure this suspense another moment,” thought I, “I must have a light and I must know what is the matter, and I must bring Daddy in here this minute. If we are going down I want him to be with us.” So I swung myself out of the berth, dodged a trunk, groped my way to the door, and ran barefooted to Number 44. I didn’t stop to knock, but turned the knob, as a terrific lurch of the ship threw me against Daddy’s berth, where the only man who knew anything about running that ship lay fast asleep.
Of course you’ll think that an absurd thing to say, but then you don’t know Daddy. He is the kind of a man who was born with expedients in both hands. However much I doubted the wisdom of confessing it to Daddy, away down in my heart I felt that if he would only wake up and come into our room, he would devise a way to save us, if every one else went to the bottom. Hadn’t he time and again rescued us from dreadful disasters by fire and water, didn’t he in his quiet way master every situation at the right moment; was there any one more skilled in handling boats, more subtle in knowledge of winds and waves than Daddy? Wasn’t there just cause that I should wake him up? Of course there was! It wasn’t right that he should be sleeping so peacefully while his wife and children were waiting for the last trump. No, it wasn’t right. So I touched him rather lightly, somewhat hesitatingly, because he never likes to be awakened, and I said—well, I don’t recall just what I said; you know how I felt; and he, the man of expedients, the man of many rescues, turned over and grunted out, “What on earth are you making such a fuss about? Go and see the captain? No, I’ll not go and see the captain or any other man, and I don’t want to sit on your trunk. Go to bed, we’re all right; the sea isn’t as bad as it was before midnight, and what’s the use of worrying anyway? Go to bed, that’s a good girl.” What could I do but go? He wouldn’t budge, so I went back to Number 41 with all the injured dignity possible under the circumstances, and I didn’t care a bit when his door banged good and hard after me. I have never since then been able to understand his utter indifference to our distress that night. It must have been something he ate for dinner.
It was a weird night outside; a white gray night, shone upon fitfully by a sullen moon and a few lonely stars. Every other minute we were in utter darkness, as a thunderous wave came surging deep over the port-holes; then for a brief moment again the sickly light of the moon would steal through the thick wet glass to where the little girls lay, and I wondered if the morning would ever come.
III.
The next day I did not dare look from my port-hole. I had not only drawn the lattice-screen to keep out the