"Well, captain," Charlie said to that officer, "I congratulate you on the behaviour of the ship. It has been a tremendous gale, and she has weathered it stoutly."
"Yes, Captain Marryat, she has done well. I have only once or twice been out in so severe a storm, since I came to sea."
"And where are we now?" Charlie asked, looking round the horizon. "When shall we be at Madras?"
"Well," the captain said with a smile, "I am afraid that you must give up all idea of seeing Madras, just at present. We have been blown right up the bay, and are only a few hours' sail from the mouth of the Hoogly. I have a far larger cargo for that place than for Madras, and it would be a pure waste of time for me to put back now. I intend, therefore, to go to Calcutta first, discharge and fill up there, and then touch at Madras on my way back.
"I suppose it makes no great difference to you."
"No, indeed," Charlie said. "And I am by no means sorry of the opportunity of getting a glimpse of Calcutta, which I might never otherwise have done. I believe things are pretty quiet at Madras, at present; and I have been so long away, now, that a month or two sooner or later will make but little difference."
A few hours later, Charlie noticed a change in the colour of the sea, the mud-stained waters of the Hoogly discolouring the Bay of Bengal, far out from its mouth. The voyage up was a tedious one. At times the wind fell altogether and, unable to stem the stream, the ship lay for days at anchor, the yellow tide running swiftly by it.
"The saints presarve us, Mr. Charles! Did you ever see the like?" Tim Kelly exclaimed. "There's another dead body, floating down towards us, and that is the eighth I've seen this morning. Are the poor hathen craturs all committing suicide together?"
"Not at all, Tim," Charlie said, "the Hoogly is one of the sacred rivers of India, and the people on its banks, instead of burying their dead, put them into the river and let them drift away."
"I calls it a bastly custom, yer honor, and I wonder it is allowed. One got athwart the cable this morning, and it frightened me nigh out of my sinses, when I happened to look over the bow, and saw the thing bobbing up and down in the water.