Going on deck, Peter found that the fog was as thick as ever. It was now nearly eight bells (4 p.m.), and the crew had been mustered for inspection. All the deck hands were now rigged out in uniforms. Instead of the motley garb, each man had a loose-fitting coat of butcher-blue, reaching to his knees and secured round the waist with a red scarf. His headdress was a scarlet, close-fitting cap, not unlike the Egyptian "tarboosh". This was the uniform issued by the Company for "ceremonial", and the expected advent of passengers was a fitting occasion for the display.
Three short blasts close alongside brought the officer of the watch to the end of the bridge.
"Tender alongside, sir," he announced.
The Old Man, in his best uniform, loomed up through the fog, disappearing as he hastened to the gangway, where, at the foot of the accommodation ladder, two lascars were stationed at the manropes to assist in the trans-embarkation of the passengers.
Gliding through the mist like a wraith the squat, snub-nosed tender ran alongside and was made fast. One by one the passengers began to ascend the swaying accommodation ladder. In all they numbered forty-one, mostly of the male sex. A few were missionaries bound for Kenya and Uganda; there were men taking up farming in the rich lands of the interior of British East Africa; mining engineers for Rhodesia; and people who for various reasons had booked their passages to the Cape by the West Barbican rather than by the fast mail-boats. There was also a young man in the uniform of a Mercantile Marine Officer. He was the ship's doctor, "signed on" for the voyage only, thus combining business with pleasure, being in ordinary conditions a hard-worked country practitioner. It was the first long holiday he had had for five years, and he meant to make the best of every minute of it.
There were seven lady passengers. The first one up the ladder was a stout, middle-aged woman, dressed rather startlingly for a trip on a tender in a fog. Her travelling-costume was certainly of good material but too vivid in colour for a woman of her age and build.
Mostyn, standing a few feet from the head of the accommodation ladder, watched her curiously. At one time she might have been good-looking. A perpetual sneer was on her face. She looked a woman who was habitually peevish and vile-tempered. Even as she came up the ladder she was complaining in a loud, high-pitched voice to someone following her—her husband apparently.
"Bet she's a tartar," thought Peter, and turned his attention to the next newcomer—a red-faced, sheepish-looking man, who, judging by his obvious bewilderment, had set foot for the first time upon a craft larger than a coastal pleasure steamer. Mostyn put him down as a country innkeeper, since he bore a strong resemblance to the host of the "Blue Cow" at Trentham Regis.
After that the crowd on the gangway thickened, the swaying ladder creaking and groaning under the weight of this queue of humanity. There were old men, young men; prosperous-looking men, poor-looking men; men with jovial lightheartedness written large upon their faces; others looking woebegone and dejected, as if regretting the past and dreading the future. There were men who might have been chosen as models in the rôle of Adonis; others who outvied in features the deepest Adelphi villain. Amongst the last of the arriving passengers came a girl of about nineteen or twenty.
She was slim and petite. Although wearing a serviceable raincoat she carried herself gracefully, holding but lightly to the handrail of the ladder. Mostyn noticed that her moist hair was of a rich, brownish hue, her features finely modelled. Her eyes were of a deep grey hue, beneath a pair of evenly arched eyebrows.