Boycotted Part 29

He was encasing himself in tarpaulins, and appeared not to hear me.

I repeated my inquiry, and added, in the feeble hope that he might contradict me, "Doesn't look like quieting down."

"No," said he, looking up at the sky; "there'll be a goodish bit more of it before we're over. All aboard there?"

"No," I shouted, rus.h.i.+ng towards the gangway; "I'm not!"

Oh, how I wished I could have found myself just left behind. As it was I was precipitated nearly head first down the gangway, amid the by no means friendly expletives of the sailors, and landed at the bottom a clear second after my hat, and two seconds, at least in advance of my umbrella. Before I had recovered all my component parts the _Royal Duke_ was off.

It was not the slightest comfort to me to reflect that if only I had dashed on board the moment I saw my man, and arrested him there and then, we might both be standing at this moment comparatively happy on that quay whose lights blinked unkindly, now above us, now below, now one side, now the other, as we rolled out of the harbour.

"Bit of a sea outside, I guess," said a voice at my side.

Outside! Then what was going on now did not count! I clapped my hat down on my head and made for the cabin door.

It had entered my mind to penetrate into the steerage at once and make sure of my runaway; but when I contemplated the distance of deck between where I now stood and where I had seen him disappear; and when, moreover, as the boat's head quitted the lee of the breakwater a big billow from the open leapt up at her and washed her from stem to stern, something within me urged me to go below at once, and postpone business till the morning.

I have only the vaguest recollection of the ghastly hours which ensued.

I have a wandering idea of a feeble altercation with a steward on hearing that all the berths were occupied and that he had nowhere to put me. Then I imagine I must have lain on the saloon floor or the cabin stairs; at least, the frequency with which I was trodden upon was suggestive of my resting-place being a public thoroughfare.

But the treading under foot was not quite so bad as being called upon to show my ticket later on. That was a distinctly fiendish episode, and I did not recover from it all the night. More horrible still, a few brutes, lost to all sense of humanity, attempted to have supper in the saloon, within a foot or two of where I lay. Mercifully, their evil machinations failed, for nothing could stay on the table.

Oh, the horrors of that night! Who can say at what angles I did not incline? Now, as we swooped up a wave I stood on my head, next moment I s.h.i.+vered and shuddered in mid-air. Then with a wild plunge I found myself feet downward, and as I sunk my heart and all that appertained to it seemed to remain where they had been. Now I was rolling obliquely down the cabin on to the top of wretches as miserable as myself. Now I was rolling back, and they pouring on to the top of me. The one thought in my mind was--which way are we going next? and mixed up with it occasionally came the aspiration--would it were to the bottom! Above it all was the incessant thunder of the waves on the decks above and the wild wheezing of the engines as they met the shrieking wind.

But I will not dwell on the scene. Once during the night I thought of Michael McCrane, and hoped he was even as I was at that moment. If he was, no dog was ever in such a plight!

At last the early dawn struggled through the deadlights.

"At last," I groaned, "we shall soon be in the Lough!"

"Where are we?" said a plaintive voice from the midst of the heap which for the last few hours had regularly rolled on the top of me whenever we lurched to larboard.

"Off the Isle of Man," was the reply. "Shouldn't wonder if we get a bit of a sea going past, too."

Off the Isle of Man! Only half way, and a bit of a sea expected as we went past!

I closed my eyes, and wished our bank might break before morning!

Whether the "bit of sea" came up to expectations or not I know not. I was in no condition to criticise even my own movements. I believe that as time went on I became gradually amalgamated with the larger roiling heap of fellow-sufferers on the floor, and during the last hour or so of our misery rolled in concert with them. But I should be sorry to state positively that it was so.

All I know is that about a hundred years after we had pa.s.sed the Isle of Man I became suddenly awake to the consciousness that something tremendous had happened. Had we struck in mid-ocean? had the masts above us gone by the board? were we sinking? or what?

On careful reflection I decided we were doing neither, and that the cause of my agitation was that the last wave but one had gone past the s.h.i.+p without breaking over her. And out of the next dozen waves we scrambled over I counted at least five which let us off in a similar manner!

Oh, the rapture of the discovery! I closed my eyes again lest by any chance it should turn out to be a dream.

The next thing I was conscious of was a rough hand on my shoulder and a voice shouting, "Now then, mister, wake up; all ash.o.r.e except you.

Can't stay on board all day!"

I rubbed my eyes and bounded to my feet.

The _Royal Duke_ was at a standstill in calm water, and the luggage- crane was busy at work overhead.

"Are we there?" I gasped.

"All except you," said the sailor.

"How long have we been in?"

"Best part of an hour. Got any luggage, mister?"

An hour! Then I had missed my man once more! Was ever luck like mine?

I gathered up my crumpled hat and umbrella, and staggered out of that awful cabin.

"Look here," said I to the sailor, "did you see the pa.s.sengers go ash.o.r.e?"

"I saw the steerage pa.s.sengers go," said he; "and a nice-looking lot they was."

"There was one of the steerage pa.s.sengers I wanted particularly to see.

Did you see one with a portmanteau and hat-box?"

"Plenty of 'em," was the reply.

"Yes; but his was quite a new hat-box; you couldn't mistake it," said I.

"Maybe I saw him. There was one young fellow--"

"Dark?"

"Yes; dark."

"And tall?"

"Yes; tall enough."

"Dismal-looking?"

"They were all that."

"Did you see which way he went?"

"No; but I heard him ask the mate the way to the Northern Counties Railway; so I guess he's for the Derry line."

It was a sorry clue; but the only one. I was scarcely awake; and, after my night of tragedy, was hardly in a position to resume the hue and cry.

Yet anything was preferable to going back to sea.

So I took a car for the Northern Counties station. For a wonder I was in time for the train, which, I was told, was due to start in an hour's time.

I spent that hour first of all in was.h.i.+ng, then in breakfasting, finally in telegraphing to my manager--