One evening a circumstance occurred which for the moment aroused the monster envy, that had, for a time at least, slumbered peacefully, and overthrew all our confidence in our captain and our pride in our vessel. A bright light was reported astern, which rapidly loomed larger and larger, bearing down upon us with most astounding speed. Some thought it must be a pirate, and propounded ingenious and reassuring questions as to the latest fashion in “walking the plank.”
Presently, two more lights were reported just above the horizon, which gained upon us equally rapidly, and then it dawned upon the mind of one of the passengers that the Cape route was to be essayed with a large steamer, of which the first was the pioneer.
She came, she saw, she conquered; and we, who had hitherto regarded our ship as a veritable hare, now discovered, to our intense chagrin, that she was but a tortoise after all.
Added to this discomfiture, we had to listen to such banter as: “Can we do anything for you in Calcutta, besides telling them that you’re coming some day?”
Her lights soon vanished far ahead! Was it a phantom vessel, the creature of a distempered brain?
For some time we maintained a significant silence round the cuddy; after which, thanks to the genial influence of the old system of provisioning, tongues were loosened and opinions freely expressed.
For my own part, I was in no hurry for the voyage to draw to a close; not only did the dangers of being at sea appear to me no greater than those with which we are beset on land, but I looked upon it as a respite from the pestilence that was ever strutting about the land for which we were bound.
What if the steamer did arrive many days before us; would it make any practical difference in the life ahead? Others, I regret to say, thought differently; they fretted and fumed, vilified sailing vessels in general, ours in particular, and made themselves generally miserable, frowning whenever their eye fell on the unoffending sails, and sneering at the “run,” which, seeing that it kept a steady ten or twelve miles an hour, was hardly to be grumbled at.
Man is a strange creature, and he exhibits himself under a variety of phases; but nowhere, perhaps, so remarkably as during a long sea-voyage.
We had now reached our southernmost point, and were steering in a north-easterly course.