My wife and I grew to like them well, and I was never tired of getting their views of men and things. Truly their lives were a thing apart from the world and the ways of men. They told me with a kind of rapture that the average life of one of their order in Mexico was only five years, and they thought heaven had been very gracious in selecting them, that they might give their lives to the Church and so become members of the mighty army of martyrs who were honored in heaven by looking upon the face of the Virgin and her Son and serving them.
They knew nothing of wines and did not suspect the costliness of those which during the entire voyage they drank at my expense.
The dinners were rather formal affairs and occupied an hour and a half, and between the good sisters and us two we always finished a bottle of claret and two of champagne, and about a like quantity between dinner and bedtime. I don't believe that up to the hour they left the world they ever quite understood why they were so happy and merry on that voyage.
We used to visit the steerage forward nearly every day. There was an unmistakable lady so unfortunate as to be a passenger there. She appreciated our visits, and eventually confided the story of her life to my wife, and what a story it was of woman's love and man's perfidy!
I had an electric battery which I frequently took into the steerage to astonish the natives. When I first put a silver piece in a basin of water and told them the man taking it out could keep it, what a rush there was! There was one would-be clever clown who was perfectly willing to test the power of the battery, but was so clever he never would take hold of both handles at once. He dodged around for two or three days greatly pleased with his sharpness, but I determined to have him some day and have him hard when I got him. So one morning when dancing about as usual he happened to be barefooted. Apparently by accident, I upset the basin of water over the deck, making it a good conductor, then accepting his offer to try the machine by holding one handle, I dropped the other on the wet deck and gave him the benefit of the whole power of the battery. He let one terrific yell, then stood rooted to the deck speechless for a moment; then gave vent to a series of whoops that would have made the fortune of a Comanche Indian. When freed from the current the clever fellow made a break for the steerage and never appeared again at any of my electric seances. All those ignorants insisted that my battery was surely el diablo.
After eighteen days we cast anchor in St. Thomas harbor, and pleasant as our voyage had been we were glad to see land. We were to stop a day for coaling.
Taking the two sisters, we went ashore in one of the many boats surrounding the ship, all manned by scantily robed black fellows. The town, with its hordes of gaudily dressed and noisy blacks, was most interesting. I had hired the boat for the day, so the three black fellows accompanied us around the town. Each wore a stovepipe hat. The remainder of their furniture consisted of cotton shirt and trousers. The men were barefooted, of course.
My wife was the typical blue-eyed, golden-haired Englishwoman, and was the observed of all observers in that black mob. I myself was all in white, from canvas shoes to white umbrella. So, between the two sisters in their black robes and white bonnets and our attending boatmen, along with a mob of half-naked black boys that followed, we formed quite a circus and created a commotion in the town.
First I took the sisters to the cathedral. Both were grateful and knelt at the altar for a full half hour while we waited. Then after visiting several stores to make some small purchases, we went to a circus showing there that week. I bought ten tickets for my party. Everything they saw in the town was marvelous and strange to them. When we entered the circus tent the sisters were perplexed and thought it must be a new sort of church. But words would fail to express their amazement when they saw the clown and bespangled horseman enter the ring and the performance begin. They were in a new and hitherto undreamed-of world, and gazed in childlike wonderment on the scene, and, like children, only saw the glitter of the spangles and thought both men and women performers were angels of beauty. Even after the thing was over the magic and witchery of it all rested on them. Their hearts were deeply stirred and their thoughts were with the performers. To please them we sat until the audience had dispersed, and, when going out, one of them, speaking of the performers, told my wife they must be "very near to God."
Then we went to the hotel. I dispersed my cortege and ordered a room for ourselves and one for the sisters, and we all took a nap until evening. Then we had some negro singing and dancing for our amusement in the courtyard of the hotel, and at 9 o'clock we went out for a moonlight walk under the tropical sky. About 10 we found we had had enough of it and were glad to betake ourselves to bed.