"All right," says I; "thank you." The directions weren't clear, but I guessed I could find my way. I went forward through rows of boxes, trunks, valises, ropes and other impediments, and finally came to a stairway over which was a hood or sliding cover. This stairway was almost straight up and down, with rough brass plates on each step to prevent one from slipping. At either side of it was a rope in lieu of a balustrade.
That stairway did not look good to me.
CHAPTER VII. THE STEERAGE.
As soon as I tried to go down the stairway there was trouble, trouble of the worst kind. I could get down all right, but when I got down a few steps an odor came up that made me pause. The odor was not of stale onions, a rotting steer or anything like that, but an indefinable one. I never smelt anything like it before and it conquered me at once. It caught me right in the throat and though I tried to swallow I couldn't do so to save my life. I began to chew as if I were chewing tobacco, and the lump rose in my throat and wouldn't go up nor down. I hadn't drunk a drop that morning excepting a cup of coffee, so it couldn't have been liquor that upset me. It must have been the smell and nothing else. I stood on a step holding to the side rope to steady myself and hesitated about going down. I grew dizzy and thought I was going to fall but held on like grim death.
"Come Windy," says I to myself, "your bunk is below, and you'll have to go down to it or someone else will get it. This won't do."
I went down slowly and the further down I got the stronger the smell became. Suddenly I got very sick. I felt like giving up the enterprise right then and there but as my friends would have had the laugh on me if I did so, I concluded to see the thing out.
I had to go down the stairway, though, there was no getting around that; I had to select a berth, and to do that I had to go below. I kind of fooled around and hesitated to make the plunge but finally I mustered courage and made the attempt once more. I went down very slowly, holding my hand over my nose and mouth. I got down a few steps and then I stopped again. I just couldn't. I just laid down where I was and fired away like a good fellow. I was more than willing to die.