“Be sure to bring me the answer,” I cautioned.
He pushed his way through a throng of his messmates and disappeared into the drawing-room. A moment later he returned with the answer I had expected.
“So you’re on the beach?” he grinned, “you sure did get it on Clarence, all right. ’Ard luck. The chief says the force is full an’ the company rules don’t allow ’im to tyke on a man to work ’is passage. Sye, you’ve slipped your cayble, anyway, ayn’t you? We’re not ’ome-ward bound; we’re going out. You’d best rustle it an’ get ashore.”
He turned into the galley. Never had I ventured to hope that he would let me out of his sight before he had turned me over to the quartermaster. His carelessness was due, no doubt, to his certainty that I had “slipped my cayble.” I dashed out of the passageway as if fearful of being carried off; but, once shrouded in the kindly night, paused to peer about me.
There were a score of places that offered a temporary hiding; but a stowaway through the Suez Canal must be more than temporarily hidden. I ran over in my mind the favorite lurking places on ocean liners. Inside a mattress in the steerage? First-class only. In the hold? Hatches all battened down. On the fidleys or in the coal bunkers? Very well in the depth of winter, but sure death in this climate. In the forecastle? Indian crew. In the rubbish under the forecastle head? Sure to be found in a few hours by tattle-tale natives. In the chain locker? The anchor might be dropped anywhere in the canal, and I should be dragged piecemeal through the hawse-hole.
Still pondering, I climbed to the spot where I had first been accosted. From the starboard side, forward, came the voice of the fourth mate, clambering on board. In a few moments officers and men would be flocking up from below. Noiselessly, I sprang up the ladder to the hurricane deck. That and the bridge were still deserted. I crept to the nearest lifeboat and dragged myself along the edge that hung well out over the canal. The canvas cover was held in place by a cord that ran alternately through eyeholes in the cloth and around iron pins under the gunwale. I tugged at the cord for a minute that seemed a century before I succeeded in pulling it over the first pin. After that, all went easily. With the cover loosened for a space of four feet, I thrust my head through the opening. Before my shoulders were inside my feet no longer reached the ship’s rail. I squirmed in, inch by inch, after the fashion of a swimmer, fearful of making the slightest noise. Only my feet remained outside when my hand struck an oar inside the boat. Its rattle could have been heard in Cairo. Drenched with perspiration, I listened for my discoverer. The festive music, evidently, engrossed the attention of the entire ship’s company. I drew in my feet by doubling up like a pocketknife, and, thrusting a hand through the opening, fastened the cord over all but one pin.
The space inside was more than limited. Seats, casks, oars, and boat-hooks left me barely room to stretch out on my back without touching the canvas above me. Two officers brushed by, and mounting to the bridge, called out their orders within six feet of me. The rattle of the anchor chain announced that the long passage of the canal had begun. When I could breathe without opening my mouth at every gasp, I was reminded that the shop where spitted mutton sold cheaply had been closed. Within an hour, that misfortune was forgotten. The sharp edge of the water cask under my back, the oars that supported my hips, the seat that my shoulders barely reached, began to cut into my flesh, sending sharp pains through every limb. The slightest movement might send some unseen article clattering. Worst of all, there was just space sufficient for my head while I kept my neck strained to the utmost. The tip of my nose touched the canvas. To have stirred that ever so slightly would have sent me packing at the first canal station.
The position grew more painful hour by hour, but with the beginning of the “graveyard” watch my body grew numb and I sank into a half-comatose state that was not sleeping.
Daylight brought no relief, though the sunshine, filtering through the canvas, disclosed the objects about me. There came the jabbering of strange tongues as the crew quarreled over their work about the deck. Now and then, a shout from a canal station marked our progress. Passengers mounting to the upper deck brushed against the lifeboat in their promenading. From time to time confidential chats sounded in my ears.
All save the officers soon retreated to the shade below. In the arid desert through which we were steaming that day must certainly have been calorific. But there, at least, a breeze was stirring. By four bells, the Egyptian sun, pouring down upon the canvas, had turned my hiding place into an oven. By noon, it resembled nothing so cool and refreshing. A raging thirst had long since put hunger to flight. In the early afternoon, as I lay motionless on my grill, there sounded the splash of water, close at hand. Two natives had been sent to wash the lifeboat. For an hour they dashed bucketful after bucketful against it, splashing, now and then, even the canvas over my head.