“Phyl,” said an urgent whisper very early one morning—“oh, Phyl, do wake up, you don’t know what you’re missing.”
Phyl opened a very sleepy pair of eyes and found Dolly’s face at a curious distance above her. A red swollen face it was—almost a purple in fact
“Your eyes ’ll drop out in a minute,” was the elder sister’s remark, delivered sleepily. And indeed there seemed some danger of that horrible accident happening, for Dolly had leaned her body so far out of her top bunk that her head was not very far from Phyl’s.
“Well, wake up then,” she said.
“You come down here,” Phyl said, her eyes fast shut again.
“Oh,” said Dolly, “yours is a horrid berth, come up here, Phyl, there are the loveliest, wonderfullest things to see.”
Then Phyl remembered they were at last, after all [125] the weeks and weeks of anticipation and waiting, actually at sea, and was amazed to think that she could have been unwilling to wake. In a twinkling she flung back the clothes, and climbed the mahogany ladder that reached to Dolly’s berth.
The two rough golden heads come very close together as they peep out of the port-hole. “The loveliest, wonderfullest things” were one moment the middle of the grey-green waves, and the next a glimpse of grey rain.
“Isn’t it lovely?” Dolly said, rapturously.
Phyl’s only but perfectly satisfactory answer was a deep-drawn sigh of intense happiness.
“What woke me,” whispered Dolly, “was, I felt somebody’s arm stretched across me, and it was the thin steward that gave Weenie the crystallized fruit, and he just screwed up the window and walked out again.”
“He should have sent the stewardess in,” said Phyl, with a becoming sense of propriety. “I wonder why he shut it; last night they said we might leave it open.”
“P’waps we’re in deeper water now,” suggested Dolly.
The whispering had not wakened either the mother or Weenie. There was a berth just above Mrs. Conway’s, but it had not been disturbed; Weenie was a prey to queer tremors of fear that first strange night, so Mrs. Conway slept with her in her arms. The dear [126] dark head was cuddled close up to the mother’s shoulder, the dark eyelashes lay peacefully on the round cheeks, the red babyish lips were apart. The mother was fast asleep, one protecting arm round her youngest daughter.
“They won’t wake for long enough and long enough,” said Dolly; “let’s get dressed and have a peep outside.”
They put their clothes on awkwardly; it was a difficult thing to manage, both sitting there in that top berth, but they dare not trust the floor, for last night, undressing, they had made a great noise in tumbling about. At last they were ready, and softly opening the door, they stole out into the long strange saloon. For some time they hung close to their own door, there were so many stewards moving backwards and forwards preparing the many tables for breakfast, that they felt timid. But at last confidence came to them, and having found with their eyes the steps that led up to the deck, they shyly let their feet follow. They went up timidly, and backwards—a friend having told them that was the proper way to descend, and they imagined for themselves it must consequently be the best mode of ascent. The awkward mode of progression took some time, and a boy in a nautical cap, who had been worrying the stewards, laughed aloud at them.
They had both secretly imagined a scene of wonderful beauty would burst upon their delighted eyes [127] as soon as they gained the deck. Phyl’s mental vision had included a bright blue sea with whales spouting in various parts, albatrosses flying overhead, and perhaps a majestic iceberg in the distance. Dolly had a dear notion that there would be islands dotted about with cocoanut palms waving gracefully, and black people rowing about in little boats.
And oh! such a woefully dull picture they saw! They were barely out of the mouth of the Thames; the sea was grey, the sky grey, the coast dingy. There were numbers of other boats near—fishing-smacks with brown patched sails, long untidy-looking schooners, two or three big steamers coming in, all their gay paint washed off, one with a mast broken, and a very storm-beaten air about her.
Phyl gulped down a tear, the corners of Dolly’s smiling mouth fell down, down.
Then “Oh!” Phyl cried, “just look, Dolly, see the sailors sitting up there on the mast! Oh! look, there goes another one—did you ever see any one climb like that?”
Dolly’s mouth corners came up at this interesting sight.
“What are they doing?” she said; “are they going to put sails up?”
Phyl always assumed knowledge, even though she had it not.
“What do we want with sails?” she said, “this is a steamship, Dolly, you goose. I expect those sailors [128] have to sit up there for punishment, that’s the way captains always punish sailors when they’ve been doing anything wrong.”
“He—he—he!” laughed the fiendish boy in a nautical cap behind them.
They both looked greatly agitated, for they had an unconquerable dread of boys, and they hurried off to the furthermost end of the deck, though there was no longer any shelter there.
“Let’s get up these steps quickly, Phyl,” whispered Dolly, “he’s coming after us.”
They went up hurriedly, even forgetting to walk backwards. Up here there was another pleasant deck, with awnings stretched against the sun and rain: they decided this should be the place where they would always play.
“We could make the loveliest little kitchen in this corner,” Dolly said, running to a tempting place under the companion-ladder that led to the bridge.
“Let’s go up these other steps,” said Phyl, “it’s so high up there we might see lots of things we can’t see down here.”
They began the ascent, but Dolly, who was behind, caught sight of a notice that said passengers were forbidden to go on the bridge.
She grasped Phyl’s frock in a tumult of fear to drag her back, and at the same time a short red-haired man with a blue coat trimmed with gold lace and gold buttons, and a cap with a gold and red sort [129] of emblem, paused in his walk up and down above, and noticed them.
“What are you doing here?” he said, and his voice was so used to shouting in the wind that it thrilled them with horror, it sounded so loud and fierce. “If you don’t go back at once I shall put you in irons.”
Go back at once! They fairly fell down the remaining steps and scudded across the deck like a pair of terrified rabbits. The officer himself smiled as he looked after their flying curls, and remembered the momentary look of terror on the faces that had looked up at him.
They stood still to recover themselves in the sheltered corner that Dolly had thought would make so ideal a kitchen. Their faces were quite pale at the thought of their narrow escape, and their knees were trembling dreadfully.
“Well,” said a voice behind them, and turning, they saw the dreadful boy, “I wouldn’t be you kids for anything—a nice thing you’ve let yourselves in for.”
“W—what?” said Phyl, trying to stand her ground.
“He only said if we didn’t go back he w—would——” said Dolly, with teeth almost chattering.
The boy came closer to them and spoke in a lower tone, for there were a couple of apprentices near. “You’re second-class passengers, aren’t you?” he said.
“Yes,” said Phyl.
[130]
“Very well,” said the boy, “you’re trespassing,—this
is the first-class deck.”
Fresh horror came into their eyes; they had just escaped one danger to be plunged into another.
“We didn’t know,” they said, “no one told us not to come.”
“You ought to have known,” the boy said, “the captain won’t take that excuse, I can assure you—you’ll be sentenced like the rest of them.”
“What’ll they do to us?” Phyl said, with a hunted glance around.
The boy shrugged his shoulders and gave a low whistle.
“You saw some men sitting across one of the yardarms [131] this morning,” he said; “that’s the usual punishment for trespassing on the first-class deck without leave. P’raps though as you’re only girls they won’t make you go so far as the mast,—see that rather low spar-yard up there; I believe that’s the one kept for children.”
Dolly was trembling so violently, Phyl put her own shaking arm round her waist to sustain her; but the boy was looking in front of him and did not notice the exceeding fright. Phyl touched his arm. “No one has seen us—perhaps we could slip down the steps before the captain gets here.”
“Not a bit of it,” said the cruel boy; “I can’t see the law broken in this way, I’m going to give you in charge to one of the officers there.”
A moan of despair broke from Dolly’s pale lips, the tears burst from out her eyes.
“We shall fall in the sea and be drowned,” she said chokingly, “we can’t climb a bit.”
“Well, my crikey!” said the boy, and the next minute Dolly found his arm was round her shoulder, and he was patting her and talking very fast and eagerly. “There, don’t cry, little kid; of course I was only having a lark with you,” he said; “I never thought you’d swallow it. Of course no one will say a word to you—how were you to know the decks? Here, come along, and I’ll show you the barometer and heaps of other things.”
[132]
But Phyl and Dolly, though reassured, were anxious
not to trespass a moment longer.
“We’d better get down on our own deck now,” they said nervously, and Phyl added, “Are you first-class?”
“Oh! the captain’s my pater,” the lad said. “I have a bunk in his cabin, and have my meals anywhere; it’s better fun third, but the grub’s better first.”
“We’d really rather go,” said Phyl, edging towards the companion at the sight of an officer approaching. “Mam—mother will be looking for us.”
“Is she a little lady in black?” said the boy. “I saw her looking all over the decks below and asking the bo’sun questions. I thought she’d lost her box.”
But Phyl and Dolly had sprung away from him, and were rapidly descending the steps backwards.