“You right, Sam,” she whispered; “let us make our peace wid God, in case anything happen.” And as she spoke the thought flashed through her mind that, if nothing did happen, she would be Mrs. Jones, a prospect of social advancement which, even at that tremendous moment, gave her a thrill of delight.
Some of the deckers were audibly praying now. The old man, who in Kingston had been a well-known street-preacher, kept on repeating tags of Scripture and words of warning; but gradually, in spite of his efforts to terrify the passengers into hysterics and thus establish his spiritual supremacy, they grew more calm, and soon began to talk at their ordinary pitch of voice.
For the sky was lightening. Slowly the morning star dimmed her brightness, the other stars paled and flickered out, the comet shone but indistinctly, and the moon grew white. Before it was five o’clock “The Sword of the Lord” had disappeared. And as the sky changed from black to grey, and from grey to pink and pearl and loveliest azure, as the phosphorescent brilliance of the water died away and the sun came surging up out of the sea, a great palpitating globe of golden fire, the passengers busied themselves with their toilet, and laughed and chatted as though they had not, but an hour before, been thinking of imminent death.
The transformation was complete. The sun had restored their courage, and had banished for the moment all fear from their minds. As for Susan, she fell sick during the day, her stomach no longer being able to endure the rocking and vibration of the ship. So she did not talk much about anything, and did not even trouble to mention the marriage which she and Jones were to celebrate the next day in Colon, as a sort of spiritual insurance against the eternal fire with which the greater part of mankind might be threatened on the 18th and after.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
THE LAND OF PROMISE
The comet was again visible on the ensuing night, but the horrors of sea-sickness were too acute, the misery of the passengers far too intense, for them to care greatly about the future of the world and of themselves. Word had been passed around the ship that the comet would not touch the earth for a few days yet, and that was a blessed respite. In the meantime there was no cessation of the strange agony caused by a rolling, pitching vessel which was traversing nearly six hundred miles of the roughest part of the Caribbean Sea. Some of the emigrants were secretly of the opinion that the comet could not be worse than the ship, and certainly was not just then interfering with their bodily comfort; they had also heard the sailors jesting at their fears, and that gave them a sort of courage, not unmixed with hope. Then the ex-street preacher, in the midst of one of his urgent appeals for the instant conversion of all sinners, had been suddenly taken with a desire to rush to the ship’s side. The people were too ill to laugh, but some of them smiled faintly at the unfortunate gentleman’s mishap. And smiles, coupled with sea-sickness, must inevitably reduce religious terrorism to the ridiculous.
So the second night wore on, and Jones in his cabin, and Susan in hers, slumbered fitfully, taking comfort as they remembered, when they started out of a doze, that the morning would bring an end to their present misery.
As it drew towards morning they found sleep impossible. It was as though they were in a steam bath, the awful, close, clammy heat was something they had never experienced before. They struggled out of their bunks, as did all the other second-class passengers, the perspiration streaming from their bodies. “This must be the beginning of hell,” Jones muttered impiously, though not without a certain sense of terror. He was still sea-sick, and this, and the terrific heat, inclined him to believe that he had now sounded the ultimate depths of human misery. “I wonder why I bother come to this infernal place?” he grumbled, as he struggled into his clothes with the intention of going on deck.
He peeped out of his porthole, trying to peer through the darkness. He heard outside the labourers jabbering as they moved about the ship; the swish of water as it poured from the upper deck into the sea warned him that they were swabbing down the decks, and he guessed that Colon could not now be far away. He hurried out of his stifling cabin and went to call up Susan; she was ready dressed, but pale and weak; she gladly came out, and together they went to the ship’s side, anxious for a first glimpse of the land.