“Not with a vessel of this class,” explained the steward.
“Oh, dear,” cried Miss Chain, “but we are passing into rough water.”
“There is a slight swell, ladies. It is caused by the tide. She will be steadier directly. Perhaps you would prefer to lie down?”
“Oh, no, no, we would sooner go on deck,” cried Edith Dove, not clearly understanding their position.
“If you ladies just keep quiet for one minute,” said the steward, “I will step up and ask the captain how far they are going to run out to meet the Dieppe boat before turning.”
“But isn’t this a passenger boat?” asked Miss Chain.
“Well, no, not exactly,” said the steward, with a smile which he seemed trying to suppress.
Then a strange thing happened, for a groan and a kind of hysterical scream were heard, and seemed to issue from a cabin not far away, as though some lady passenger was ill on board. And at the same moment a stewardess came into the saloon and tried to persuade Miss Dove and Miss Chain to lie down, and invited them to take some decoction, which she extolled as a certain specific against sea-sickness.
“Thank you, nothing of that sort. I really don’t understand where we are going, or what they are doing with the ship.”
“I am a stranger myself to the ship,” said the stewardess; “in fact, most of us are.”