"That was Commodore Vanderbilt, the owner of this line," the clerk retorted very pompously, quite as if he expected Bill to drop.
The general laugh now went against Bill. "Whew! was it, though? Then I s'pose my cake's all dough," he grumbled to himself, but was greatly relieved when the shipping clerk, after a few questions, told him to sign the articles. Walter was duly engaged, in his turn, as a cabin waiter. This being settled, the two friends sallied forth in high spirits to report on board the Prometheus, bound for San Juan del Norte.
Nowhere, probably, since the days of Noah was there ever seen such utter and seemingly helpless confusion as on one of those great floating arks engaged in the California trade by way of the Isthmus, in the early fifties, just before sailing. Bullocks were dismally lowing, sheep plaintively bleating, hogs squealing. Men were wildly running to and fro, shouting, pushing, and elbowing each other about, as if they had only a few minutes longer to live and must therefore make the most of their time. Women were quietly crying, or laughing hysterically, by turns, as the fit happened to take them. Of human beings, upwards of a thousand were thus occupied on board the Prometheus; while on the already crowded slip the shouting of belated hack drivers, who stormed and swore, the loud cries of peddlers and newsboys, who darted hither and thither among the surging throng, served to keep up an indescribable uproar. Add to this, that the sky was dark and lowering, the black river swimming with floating ice, crushing and grinding against the slip, as it moved out to sea with the ebb; and possibly some idea may be formed of what was taking place on that bleak December afternoon.
But all things must come to an end. All this confusion was hushed when the word was passed to cast off, the paddle wheels began slowly to turn, and the big ship, careening heavily to port under its human freight, who swarmed like bees upon her decks, forged slowly out into the stream, carrying with her, if the truth must be told, many a sorry and homesick one already.
Walter, however, drew a long breath of relief as the ship moved away from the shores. It was the first moment in which he had been able to shake off the fear of being followed. He therefore went about his duties cheerfully, if not very skillfully.
Oh, the unspeakable misery of that first night at sea! A stiff southeaster was blowing when the steamer thrust her black nose outside of Sandy Hook. And as the hours wore on, and the gale rose higher and higher, with every lurch the straining ship would moan and tremble like a human being in distress. Now and then a big sea would strike the ship fairly, sending crockery and glassware flying about the cabin with a crash, then as she settled down into the trough, for one breathless moment it would seem as if she would never come up again. Twenty times that night the affrighted passengers gave themselves up for lost. Most of them lay in their berths prostrated by fear or seasickness. A few even put on life preservers. Perhaps a score or more, too much terrified even to seek their berths, crouched with pallid faces on the cabin stairs, foolishly imagining that if the ship did go down they would thus have the better chance of saving themselves. Some half-crazed women had even put on their bonnets, in order, as they sobbed out, to die decently.
It was hardly light, if a blurred gray streak in the east could be called light, when Walter crept up the slippery companionway. His head felt like a balloon, his eyes like two lumps of lead, his legs like mismatched legs. The ship was working her engines just enough to keep her head to the sea. The deck was all awash, and littered with the rubbish of a row of temporary, or "standee," bunks abandoned by their occupants, and broken up by the force of the gale. The paddle-boxes were stove, and tons of water were pouring in upon the decks with every revolution of the wheels. By watching his chance, when the ship steadied herself for another plunge, Walter managed to work his way out to the forepart of the vessel. Here he found Bill, with half a dozen more, all wringing-wet, hastily swallowing, between lurches of the ship, a cupful of hot coffee, which the cook was passing out to them from the galley. If ever men looked completely worn out, then those men did.
Bill no sooner caught sight of Walter, than he offered him his dipper. Walter put it away from him with a grimace of disgust.
"Dirty night," said Bill, cooling his coffee between swallows; "blowed fresh; nary watch below sence we left the dock; no life in her; steered like a wild bull broke loose in Broadway. She's some easier now. Better have some [again holding out his cup]; 't will do you good. No? Well, here goes," tilting his head back and draining the cup to the last drop.
Just then the first officer came bustling along in oilskins and sou'wester. "Here, you!" he called out, "lay for'ard there, and get the jib on her; come, bear a hand!" Walter went forward with the men. Hoisting the sail was no easy matter, with the ship plunging bows under every minute, but no sooner did the gale fill It fairly, than away it went with a report like a cannon, blown clean out of the bolt-rope, as if it had been a boy's kite held by a string. While the men were watching it disappear in the mist, crash came a ton or more of salt water pouring over the bow, throwing them violently against the deck-house. Shaking himself like a spaniel, the mate darted off to give the steersman a dressing-down for letting the ship "broach to."