The main body of the assemblage was composed of other elements—men who had come there out of motives quite apart from mere curiosity. There were women, too—young girls with flaxen hair and deep blue eyes, recalling their native Rhineland, with others of darker skin, but equally pretty faces, from the country of Corinne.
Most of the cabin-passengers—there are no others in a Cunarder—had ascended to the upper deck, as is usual at the departure of a steamer. It was but a natural desire of all to witness the withdrawal of the stage-plank—the severance of that last link binding them to a land they were leaving with varied emotions.
Despite their private thoughts, whether of joy or sorrow, they could not help scanning with curiosity that sea of faces spread out before them upon the wharf.
Standing in family parties over the deck, or in rows leaning against the rail, they interrogated one another as to the cause of the grand gathering, as also the people who composed it.
It was evident to all that the crowd was not American; and equally so, that not any of them were about to embark upon the steamer. There was no appearance of baggage, though that might have been aboard. But most of them were of a class not likely to be carried by a Cunarder. Besides, there were no signs of leave-taking—no embracing or hand-shaking, such as may be seen when friends are about to be separated by the sea. For this they were on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
They stood in groups, close touching; the men smoking cigars, many of them grand meerschaum pipes, talking gravely to one another, or more jocosely to the girls—a crowd earnest, yet cheerful.
It was plain, too, the steamer was not their attraction. Most of them faced from her, casting interrogative glances along the wharf, as if looking for something expected to appear to them in this direction.
“Who are they?” was the question passed round among the passengers.
A gentleman who appeared specially informed—there is always one such in an assemblage—vouchsafed the desired information.
“They’re the refugees,” he said. “French, Germans, Poles, and what not, driven over here by the late revolutions in Europe.”