CHAPTER XXIV.
IN WHICH ERNEST LANDS AT CROOKHAVEN, AND PROCEEDS TO LONDON.
WE had a remarkably pleasant and quick passage, and on the eighth day from New York, while we were at dinner, I heard the captain say to a lady who sat near him, that we should be off Queenstown the next morning, at six or seven o'clock. I was sorry that we were to approach the land by night, for I wanted to see it.
"You can see it if you choose to sit up all night," laughed Mr. Solomons.
"It will be rather too dark to see anything," I added.
"Not at all; it is about the full of the moon, and it will be as light as day. You can turn in early, and sleep four or five hours. We shall be off Crookhaven, where they throw over the despatch bag, about five or six hours before we stop off Queenstown; that will make it about two in the morning. If you will retire at eight, it will give you six hours' sleep; and you can turn in again and finish your nap after you have seen enough of the shore."
"I think I will do so, sir. What is the despatch bag you speak of?" I asked.
"The despatches are put into a barrel and thrown overboard off Crookhaven, where a steamer picks them up. They are taken ashore and telegraphed to London. The despatches are simply the newspapers, from which the news agent transmits the important items."
After dinner, when I went on deck, I found the carpenter preparing a flour barrel for the despatches. A quantity of sand was put in the bottom to make it stand up straight in the water. A pole was set up in the barrel, like the mast of a vessel, to the top of which a blue-light was attached, to be ignited when it was thrown overboard, in order to enable the despatch steamer to find it readily. In the daytime a red rag is sometimes attached to it, I was told by the carpenter. The papers were placed in a water-tight can, and imbedded in the sand in the barrel.
At sea almost anything creates an excitement, and the preparing the despatch barrel was witnessed by many persons, among whom I noticed Dunkswell. I had observed that he listened very attentively to all that passed between Mr. Solomons and myself at the dinner table. I did not regard this as very strange, for all on board were deeply interested in everything which related to the progress of the steamer.