"A voyage soon grows tiresome," remarked Mrs. Barstow. "Miss Bellassys, I trust you will share my cabin whilst you remain with us."
"You are exceedingly kind," said Grace.
Others of the passengers now approached, and I observed a general effort of kindness and politeness. The ladies gathered about Grace, and the gentlemen about me, and the time slipped by, whilst I related my adventures and listened to their experiences of the weather in the Channel, and such matters. It was strange, however, to feel that every hour that passed was widening our distance from home. I never for an instant regretted my determination to quit the yacht. Yet, even at this early time of our being aboard the Carthusian, I was disquieted by a sense of mild dismay when I ran my eye over the ship, and marked her sliding and curtseying steadily forwards to the impulse of her wide and gleaming pinions, and reflected that this sort of thing might go on for days, and perhaps for weeks; that we might arrive at the Equator, perhaps, at the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope without meeting with a vessel to serve our turn. All the wardrobe that Grace and I possessed, we stood in. Small conveniences we should be easily able to borrow, but what on earth were we to do without a change of dress or linen? A voyage half-way round the world was indeed a new and quite unconsidered detail of our elopement. From Boulogne to Mount's Bay was, I had often thought, whilst making my plans, too far by several leagues of water. But what, if in defiance of the keenest look-out for ships, we should be carried to New Zealand? Could we get married there? Did the Colonials impose the restrictions of the old home upon the nuptials of a couple? Should we have to wait for Aunt Amelia's sanction? How long would it take for her ladyship to receive a letter from, say Otaga, and for us to get her reply?
Well, in talking, and in thinking, and in walking, and in looking, that first afternoon passed, and at half-past five o'clock we went to dinner. I had had a short chat with Captain Parsons, and from him had learnt that there was no parson on board, though I flattered myself that I had put the question in such a way as not to excite in his brine-seasoned mind the faintest suspicion of the meaning of my curiosity. I had also given him to understand that I was a young gentleman of substance, and begged him to believe that any cost Grace and I might put the ship to should be repaid with interest to her owners.
This enabled me to take my seat at the table with an easy conscience, for though there can be no doubt as to the humanity and hospitality of the British shipmaster, the British ship-owner, on the other hand, I have always heard spoken of as a person eminent for thrift and economy, as is made manifest by the slenderness of the crew he ships, the unsavoriness of the provisions he supplies them with, and the very small wages he gives to his captains and mates.
It was impossible for me to find myself seated with Grace at my side at that cheerful, hospitable, sparkling, sea dinner-table, without acutely realising the difference betwixt this time and yesterday. Some ten or twelve persons sat down, but there was room for another dozen, which I believe about completed the number of saloon passengers the Carthusian carried. Captain Parsons, with a countenance varnished as from the recent employment of soap, was at the head of the table with Mrs. Barstow on his right, and I observed that they frequently conversed whilst they often directed their eyes at Grace and me. The setting sun shone upon the skylight, and gleamed in ruby prisms and crystals in the glass about the table. It was a warm and cheerful picture; the forward windows in the saloon framed a part of the ship—a glimpse of curved white canvas, a fragment of the galley and the long-coat, the steps leading to the forecastle, coils of gear swinging upon pins; the soft blue afternoon sky of the fine weather that had come at last shone betwixt the squares of the rattlines and floated in a tender liquid atmosphere under the arch of the sails; you could see a number of the steerage passengers pacing the main-deck, smoking and arguing; a gentle shaling noise of waters broken by the passage of the vessel seethed in the ear like a light, passing attack of deafness in the intervals of silence at the table.
The chief officer, the Scotch-faced man I have before written of, sat at the foot of the table, slowly and soberly eating.
"It would be strange, sir," said I, addressing him, "if we do not hereabout speedily fall in with something homeward bound."
"I would, sir," he answered, with a broad Scotch accent.
"Yet not so strange, Mr. M'Cosh," said a passenger, sitting opposite to me, "if you come to consider how wide the sea is here."