Now bawls Captain Steel from the break of the poop; round swing the main yards; the noble ship heels over, trembles, and starts forward, and, with the expiring gleam of the sunset upon her highest sails, the “Meteor” heads for the broad Atlantic, and glides into the gloom and space of the infinite, windy night.
[CHAPTER IV.]
IN THE ATLANTIC.
There were eight passengers and twenty-seven hands, counting captain and officers, on board the “Meteor;” in all, thirty-five souls.
In these days half that number of men would be thought ample to handle a ship of eleven hundred tons. Taking fourteen men as a ship’s company, we find—one, the cook, who is useless aloft; five ordinary seamen, equal to two able-bodied men; four ill and unable to leave their bunks; the remainder consist of the captain, two mates, and the carpenter. So that a summons for all hands to shorten sail, for example, brings forth about enough men to do the work of one yard—one yard, when there are twelve, exclusive of trysails, jibs, stun’sails, spanker, and staysails. This modern system of undermanning ships is an evil next in magnitude to that of sending crazy and leaky vessels to sea; and as many ships are lost for want of hands to work them on occasions which demand promptitude and muscle, as are lost by rotten planks and overcharged cargoes.
The passengers on board the “Meteor” consisted of four gentlemen, two ladies, a little boy, and a female servant. Of the gentlemen, one was a young man named Holland, who was going to America for no other purpose than to see Niagara; another was a merchant, who was to represent a London house in New York. He was accompanied by his wife and her maid. The third was a General in the United States Army, a fine old man with a chivalrous courtesy of manner and a handsome honest face, who had been picking up what professional hints he could find by a year’s sojourn in the military depôts of Great Britain. The fourth male passenger was an actor, magnificently named Gerald Fitzmaurice St. Aubyn, in quest of more appreciative audiences in the New Country than his genius had encountered in the Old. The widow and her son completed the list.
It took these good people a very short time to settle down to their new life and adjust themselves to the novel conditions of existence that surrounded them. The ladies lay hidden at the first going off; and, although Mr. St. Aubyn put in a punctual appearance at meals and smoked a great quantity of cheroots, it must be admitted that he was peculiarly pensive for a comedian, whose genius, he affirmed, was chiefly at home in genteel farce, though he had enacted tragedy with applause.
The “Meteor” met with adverse winds, but brilliant weather, during the first few days. She tacked north and south, and crowded canvas to make headway, but, though her speed was great through the water, her actual progress was small.
“No matter,” said Captain Steel, patiently; “we may get a gale astern of us some of these hours, and then we’ll make up for lost time.”
But whilst the weather remained so beautiful, the wind brisk and the sea smooth, the passengers could hardly regret the delay. It was like yacht sailing—dry decks, steady motion, and always the pleasurable sense of swiftness inspired by the beaded foam crisping by and stretching like a tape astern. Now and again they signalled a ship homeward bound or journeying south. The widow’s little boy clapped his hands to see the bright flags flying at the mizzen-peak, and the ladies were lost in wonderment to think that those gay colours were a language as intelligible to those concerned in their interpretation as “How do you do?” and “Very well, thank you.”