The trunks and the other baggage were stowed in the forward part of the boat, and I assisted the fair stranger and her father to the cushioned seats in the stern sheets. When we were all in, the boat was pretty well loaded down. Ben shoved her well off into the stream, and I took the tiller-lines, seated between my two passengers.
"Up oars! Let fall! Give way!" I continued, giving the usual orders. Ben and Hop bent to their oars, while all of us took a parting view of the scene of the fire. The house was burned to the ground; and it seemed to me that nearly the whole population of the city was gathered in the vicinity. A fire was not a common thing, and people went to see it as a curiosity.
The month of March is one of the most trying in the whole year in the North, and vast numbers of people had come down to Florida to escape its rigors. All the watering-places in the State were crowded with visitors, and in St. Augustine, the most popular resort, there was not a vacant room to be had. While my new passengers were gazing at the remains of the fire and the crowd that surrounded them, I began to think how I should dispose of my guests on board of the Sylvania. I was not quite willing to intrude upon Owen's party by putting them in the after cabin; but I could easily make two rooms of the captain's large apartment, while Washburn and I found quarters in the forward cabin.
The vigorous strokes of Ben and Hop soon brought us to the steamer. The passengers were still seated under the awning of the quarter-deck; and Owen had finished his cigar and joined Miss Edith, whose shadow he was when his cigar did not need attention. They all rose from their seats when they saw that I had company, for of course their curiosity was excited. We pulled around the stern, and came up to the port gangway, where the steps were rigged out.
Hop Tossford handed Miss Margie up the steps to the deck, while I assisted the gentleman, whose name I did not yet know, though I had read "P. T." on the ends of the trunks. I conducted the new passengers to the captain's room. I wanted Washburn, in order to have him remove his clothes and other articles into the forward cabin. When I looked for him, he was with the party on the quarter-deck. I went to him. In a few words I explained the situation to him. He was very willing to change his quarters, and declared that he would sleep on the fore-yard, if necessary.
"I beg your pardon, Captain Alick, but what had you in the boat?" asked Owen, as Washburn went forward.
"I had a gentleman and his daughter, with their luggage, as we say in England," I replied.
"I beg your pardon again; but who are the gentleman and his daughter?"
"I haven't the least idea. They were in a house over the other side of the city, and some way up, which has just been burned to the ground. Very likely that young lady would have been burned to death if Hop had not brought her out of her room, where she was asleep. Every hotel and boarding-house in the place is full, and they had no place to go: so I brought them on board till they can find a hotel."
"Very good of you; but what were you just saying to Robsy?" demanded Owen.