Basil, with Bessy under his arm, immediately proceeded to make the best of the way to the principal cabin. This, through a zig-zag path of various cargo, was at length accomplished; and the four stood in some dark place, in which one candle, with funereal wick, survived sullenly in the gloom.
“This,” said Basil, very boldly, “is the state cabin.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Carraways.
“It’s dark now, mamma,” said the hopeful Bessy, “because the docks and the—the other ships are close at the windows; but when we are at sea, of course it will be beautiful. Such a view!”
“No doubt, Bessy,” cried her father. “Here you’ll sit and see the dolphins and the flying-fish, and the stormy petrels, and the—the—that is, all the other sea-sights.”
“Very, very interesting indeed,” sighed Mrs. Carraways.
“The place, it must be owned,” said Basil, “is a little gloomy at present. In fact, cabins always are, in dock. But I assure you, my dear madam, when once wide at sea, and from the windows here you look out and behold a wide, wide wilderness of water, blue or green, now intermingled with the red flood of morning, now crested with the white foam of noon, now deepened with the golden sunset—with star by star coming out, like angel eyes, to smile good night upon you—I do assure you, my dear mother, that then the place will show a very, very different aspect.”
“Yes: I dare say,” confessed Mrs. Carraways; and she felt she could confess no less.
“Oh, it will be beautiful,” cried Bessy, and her hopeful, cordial voice, sounded sweetly through the miserable, musty gloom. “Beautiful to sit here, and work, and read; and watch the changes of the sea; the albatrosses, and the coral reefs, and all the ocean wonders. Beautiful!”
“And now we’ll go below,” said Carraways; for he felt the contrast of the present and the future a little too glowing for his wife; whose only answer to the raptures of Bessy was a deeper sigh.