"Perhaps, my dear sir," said I blandly, "you never look? For my part I never fail to meet with something strange, if I have only the opportunity of examining. Come, let us go out into the street, and I shall undertake to prove it. Let us peep under the first vail or the first slouched hat we meet, and I pledge myself that, on due inquiry, we shall light upon a tale as odd or as wild as fancy ever framed. A bottle of wine upon it?"
"Done!"
"Done, then: but hold, what's that?"
"Le paquebot va partir à minuit!"
"Hurra!" cried the young men. "The storm is not down a single breath, and it is pitch dark! The captain's a trump after all!"
Then there were hurrying steps and slamming doors, and flitting lights through the whole house; then hasty reckonings, and jingling coins, and bows, and shrugs, and fights with the sleeves of greatcoats; and finally, stiff moving figures mummied in broadcloth; and grim faces, half-visible between the cravat and cap; and slender forms, bonneted, yet shapeless, clinging to stout arms, as we all floated out into the night.
"The Diet is deserted," said my friend, "pro loco et tempore."
"Only the venue changed to shipboard," gasped I against the wind. "Remember the first man, woman, or child that attracts our attention on deck!" And so we parted, losing one another, and ourselves lost in the unsteady crowd.
The vessel had cleared the harbor before I met with my friend in the darkness and confusion of the midnight deck: and when we were thrown together, it was with such emphasis that we both came down. We fell, however, upon a bundle of something comparatively soft—something that stirred and winced at the contact—something that gave a low cry in three several cadences, as if it had three voices. It gave us, in fact, some confused idea of a mass of heads, legs, arms, and other appurtenances of the human body; but the whole was shrouded in a sort of woolly covering, the nature of which the darkness of the night and the rolling of the ship rendered it impossible to ascertain. I thought to myself for a moment that this was just the thing for my boasted demonstration; but no philosophy could keep the deck under such circumstances; and when my friend and I had gathered ourselves up, we made the best of our way—and it was no easy task—to the cabin, and crept into our berths. As I lay there in comparative coziness, my thoughts reverted to that bundle of life, composed in all probability of deck passengers, exposed to the cold night-wind and the drenching spray; but I soon fell asleep, my sympathy merging as my faculties became more dim in a grateful sense of personal comfort.
As the morning advanced, the wind moderated, testifying to the weather-wisdom of our captain; and my friend and I getting up betimes, met once more upon the deck. The bundle of life was still there, just without the sacred line which deck and steerage passengers must not cross; and we saw that it was composed of human figures, huddled together without distinction, under coarse and tattered cloaks.