“No; but he said he had an idea that there was something queer about her—he could not remember what it was.”
“Well, I’ve been in command of her now four years, and I’ve seen nothing to complain of. What do you say, Kelly?” appealing to the first officer.
“I say that I never wish to put foot on a better sea-boat, and there’s nothing wrong with her, as far as I know.”
But Sawmy, my Madras boy, entertained a totally different opinion of the Star. When I asked him why he did not sleep outside my door in the saloon, he frankly replied—
“Because plenty devil in this ship; the chief Serang” (head of the Lascars) “telling me that saloon plenty bad place.”
We were now within forty-eight hours of Singapore, when the weather suddenly changed, as it frequently does in those treacherous seas. The awning was taken down—sure presage of a bad time coming. The ports were closed, and all was made ready for a blow; and we were not disappointed—it came. We had a rough night, but I was not in the least inconvenienced; I slept like a dormouse rocked in the cradle of the deep.
In the morning my fellow-passenger (whose name, by the way, was Mellish, and who had evidently “suffered,” to judge by his ghastly appearance) accosted me timidly and said—
“Did you get up and walk about last night?”
“No.”