When the steam-ship came alongside the stern of the wreck, I could read distinctly the name “Lerida,” but the port she belonged to was not given.
A merchant-vessel or a man-of-war would have had no hesitation in manning this hull which, undoubtedly, contained a valuable cargo, but as the “Great Eastern” was on regular service, she could not take this waif in tow for so many hundreds of miles; it was equally impossible to return and take it to the nearest port. Therefore, to the great regret of the sailors, it had to be abandoned, and it was soon a mere speck in the distance. The group of passengers dispersed, some to the saloons, others to their cabins, and even the lunch-bell failed to awaken the slumberers, worn out by sea-sickness. About noon Captain Anderson ordered sail to be hoisted, so that the ship, better supported, did not roll so much.
CHAPTER X.
In spite of the ship’s disorderly conduct, life on board was becoming organized, for with the Anglo-Saxon nothing is more simple. The steam-boat is his street and his house for the time being; the Frenchman, on the contrary, always looks like a traveller.
When the weather was favourable, the boulevards were thronged with promenaders, who managed to maintain the perpendicular, in spite of the ship’s motion, but with the peculiar gyrations of tipsy men. When the passengers did not go on deck, they remained either in their private sitting rooms or in the grand saloon, and then began the noisy discords of pianos, all played at the same time, which, however, seemed not to affect Saxon ears in the least. Among these amateurs, I noticed a tall, bony woman, who must have been a good musician, for, in order to facilitate reading her piece of music, she had marked all the notes with a number, and the piano-keys with a number corresponding, so that if it was note twenty-seven, she struck key twenty-seven, if fifty-three, key fifty-three, and so on, perfectly indifferent to the noise around her, or the sound of other pianos in the adjoining saloons, and her equanimity was not even disturbed when some disagreeable little children thumped with their fists on the unoccupied keys.
Whilst this concert was going on, a bystander would carelessly take up one of the books scattered here and there on the tables, and, having found an interesting passage, would read it aloud, whilst his audience listened good-humouredly, and complimented him with a flattering murmur of applause. Newspapers were scattered on the sofas, generally American and English, which always look old, although the pages have never been cut; it is a very tiresome operation reading these great sheets, which take up so much room, but the fashion being to leave them uncut, so they remain. One day I had the patience to read the New York Herald from beginning to end under these circumstances, and judge if I was rewarded for my trouble when I turned to the column headed “Private:” “M. X. begs the pretty Miss Z——, whom he met yesterday in Twenty-fifth Street omnibus, to come to him to-morrow, at his rooms, No. 17, St. Nicholas Hotel; he wishes to speak of marriage with her.” What did the pretty Miss Z— do? I don’t even care to know.
I passed the whole of the afternoon in the grand saloon talking, and observing what was going on about me. Conversation could not fail to be interesting, for my friend Dean Pitferge was sitting near me.
“Have you quite recovered from the effects of your tumble?” I asked him.
“Perfectly,” replied he, “but it’s no go.”
“What is no go? You?”