“Why, sir,” answered Dacre, “she is built of iron instead of good, sound, wholesome heart of oak; that’s the fault I find with her. I have never been shipmates with iron before, and I confess I don’t like it. Of course,” he continued—judging, perhaps, from some of the passengers’ looks that he had said something a trifle indiscreet—“it is only prejudice on my part; I can’t explain my objection to iron; everybody who ought to know anything about the matter declares that iron is immensely strong compared with wood, and I sincerely believe them; still, there the feeling is, and I expect it will take me a month or two to get over it. You see, I have been brought up and have spent upwards of forty years of my life in wooden ships, and I suppose I am growing a trifle too old to readily take up newfangled notions.”
“Ah, Captain, I have met with men of your sort before,” remarked the general; “you are by no means the first person with a prejudice. But you’ll get over it, my dear fellow; you’ll get over it. And when you have done so you’ll acknowledge that there’s nothing like iron for shipbuilding. Apropos of seafaring matters, what sort of a voyage do you think we shall have?”
The skipper shrugged his shoulders.
“Who can tell?” he answered. “Everything depends upon the weather; and what is more fickle than that?—outside the limits of the trade-winds and the monsoons, I mean, of course. If we are unlucky enough to meet with a long spell of calms on the Line—well, that means a long passage. But give me as much wind as I can show all plain sail to, and no farther for’ard than abeam, and I’ll undertake to land you all at Calcutta within sixty days from to-day.”
We were still discussing the probability of the skipper being able to fulfil his promise, when a howling squall swept through the taut rigging and between the masts of the ship, causing the whole fabric to vibrate with a barely perceptible tremor, while the swish and patter of heavy rain resounded upon the glass of the skylights.
“Whew!” ejaculated the general, “what a lively prospect for to-night! What are we to do after dinner to amuse ourselves; and where are we men to go for our smoke?”
“I think,” said I, “we shall find a very comfortable place for a smoke under the overhang of the poop. The tide is ebbing strong by this time, so the ship will be riding more or less stern-on to the wind, and we shall find a very satisfactory lee and shelter at the spot that I have named.”
“Ay,” assented the skipper. “And when you have finished smoking, what can you wish for better than this fine saloon, in which to play cards, or read, or even to organise an impromptu concert? There is a capital piano abaft there; and I am sure that among so distinguished a company there must be plenty of good musicians.”
And so indeed it proved; for when, having finished our smoke, the general and some half a dozen more of us returned to the cuddy, we found that several of the younger ladies of the party had already produced their music, and were doing their best to make the evening pass pleasantly for themselves and others. Miss Onslow was one of the exceptions; she had not produced any music, nor, apparently, did she intend to take anything more than a passive part in the entertainment; indeed it is going almost too far to say even so much as that, for it appeared doubtful whether she even condescended so far as to regard herself as one of the audience; she had provided herself with a book, and had curled herself up comfortably in the corner most distant from the piano, and was reading with an air of absorption and interest so pronounced as really to be almost offensive to the performers. In almost anyone else the manifestation of so profound an indifference to the efforts of others to please would have been regarded as an indication of ill-breeding; but in her case—well, she was so regally and entrancingly lovely that somehow one felt as though her beauty justified everything, and that it was an act of condescension and a favour that she graced the cuddy with her presence at all. And indeed I was very much disposed to think that this was her own view of the matter. Be that as it may, we all spent an exceedingly pleasant evening; and when I turned into my bunk that night I felt very well satisfied with the prospects of the voyage before me.