As the evening advanced the storm seemed to grow worse, instead of decreasing, as the passengers had hoped it might when leaving Old Point, and the little steamer rolled and pitched in a manner calculated to disturb even the best sailors.
“Do you think we are going to be shipwrecked?” Gretel whispered anxiously to the stewardess. The twins were beyond caring whether they were wrecked or not.
“Shipwrecked!” repeated the colored woman, scornfully; “no, indeed. Don’t you be scared, Missie; dis yere boat’s all right. We’ll bring you safe into Baltimore to-morrow mornin’, sure as Fate.”
But though the stewardess spoke so confidently, there were some people on board who were not quite so sanguine, and when Gretel went out into the saloon for a little air, she found several of the lady passengers in tears.
“It’s the most terrible experience I’ve ever had in my life,” declared one hysterical woman. “They had no right to start the boat in such a gale.”
“If we ever see Baltimore I shall be very much surprised,” wailed another. “Oh, why did I ever leave my husband and children!”
Gretel did not repeat these remarks to her companions when she went back to the stateroom, but her heart was anything but light, and she was growing more frightened every moment.
At ten o’clock the stewardess looked in for the last time before going to bed. The twins were a little better, and had both fallen asleep.
“Dey’ll be all right now, I guess,” she told Gretel. “You’d better go to sleep too. Dere ain’t any more beds in here, but I can put you in another room. Dere’s plenty of empty ones dis trip.”
But Gretel would not leave her friends, and preferred curling up on the sofa, where she lay, with wide-open eyes, listening to the strange sounds of creaking and groaning, all quite familiar to people accustomed to life on shipboard, but which seemed to her very “frightening” indeed. She was sure they were going to be shipwrecked; they would all be drowned, and she would never see Percy or Miss Heath again. She wondered if Percy would be very sorry, and what Miss Heath would say. They had neither of them known her very long, and of course could not be expected to care as Mr. and Mrs. Barlow would care if the twins were drowned, but they had seemed to be rather fond of her, and, oh, how good and kind they both were. There was no use in trying to be brave or cheerful any longer, and poor little Gretel let her feelings have their way, and sobbed into the sofa cushion.