Under the Waves: Diving in Deep Waters by R. M. Ballantyne (read book txt) 📖

Once more we beg our reader to accompany us to sea—out into the thick darkness, over the wild waves, far from the abodes of man.

There, one night in December, a powerful steamer did battle with a tempest. The wind was against her, and, as a matter of course, also the sea. The first howled among her rigging with what might have been styled vicious violence. The seas hit her bows with a fury that caused her to stagger, and, bursting right over her bulwarks at times, swept the decks from stem to stern, but nothing could altogether stop her onward progress. The sleepless monster in the hold, with a heart of fervent heat, and scalding breath of intense energy, and muscles of iron mould, and an indomitable—yet to man submissive—will, wrought on night and day unweariedly, driving the floating palace straight and steadily on her course—homeward-bound.

Down in the cabin, in one of the side berths lay a female form. Opposite to it, in a similar berth, lay another female form. Both forms were very limp. The faces attached to the forms were pale yellow, edged here and there with green.

“My dear,” sighed one of the forms, “this is dreadful!”

After a long silence, as though much time were required for the inhalation of sufficient air for the purpose, the other form replied:—

“Yes, Laura, dear, it is dreadful.”

“’Ave a cup of tea, ladies?” said the stewardess, opening the door just then, and appearing at an acute angle with the doorway, holding a cup in each hand.

Miss Pritty shuddered and covered her head with the bed-clothes. Aileen made the form of “no, thanks,” with her lips, and shut her eyes.

“Do ’ave a cup,” said the stewardess, persuasively.

The cups appeared at that moment inclined to “’ave” a little game of hide-and-seek, which the stewardess nimbly prevented by suddenly forming an obtuse angle with the floor, and following that action up with a plunge to starboard, and a heel to port, that was suggestive—at least to a landsman—of an intention to baptise Miss Pritty with hot tea, and thereafter take a “header” through the cabin window into the boiling sea! She did neither, however, but, muttered something about “’ow she do roll, to be sure,” and, seeing that her mission was hopeless, left the cabin with a balked stagger and a sudden rush, which was appropriately followed up by the door shutting itself with a terrific bang, as though it should say, “You might have known as much, goose! Why did you open me?”

“Laura, dear,” said Aileen, “did you hear what the captain said to some one just now in the cabin, when the door was open?”

“N–no,” replied Miss Pritty, faintly.

“I distinctly heard some one ask how fast we were going, but I could not make out his reply.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the other, brightening for a brief moment; “yes, I did hear him. He said we were going six knots. Now I do not understand what that means.”

“Did you mean that?” asked Aileen, turning her eyes languidly on her friend, while a faint smile flickered on her mouth.

“Mean what?” said Miss Pritty, in evident surprise.

“No, I see you didn’t. Well, a knot means, I believe, a nautical mile.”

“A notticle mile, Aileen; what is that?”

“A nautical mile; dear me, how stupid you are, Laura!”

“Oh! I understand. But, really, the noise of that screw makes it difficult to hear distinctly. And, after all, it is no wonder if I am stupid, for what between eating nothing but pickles for six weeks, and this dreadful—there! Oh! It comes ag—”

Poor Miss Pritty stopped abruptly, and made a desperate effort to think of home. Aileen, albeit full of sympathy, turned her face to the wall, and lay with closed eyes.

After a time the latter looked slowly round.

“Are you asleep, Laura?”

Miss Pritty gave a sharp semi-hysterical laugh at the bare idea of such an impossible condition.

“Well, I was going to say,” resumed Aileen, “that we cannot be very far from land now, and when we do get there—”

“Happy day!” murmured Miss Pritty.

“We intend,” continued Aileen, “to go straight home—I—I mean to our old home, sell everything at once, and go to live in a cottage—quite a tiny cottage—by the sea somewhere. Now, I want you to come and visit us the very day we get into our cottage. I know you would like it—would like being with me, wouldn’t you?”

“Like it? I should delight in it of all things.”

“I knew you would. Well, I was going to say that it would be such a kindness to dear papa too, for you know he will naturally be very low-spirited when we make the change—for it is a great change, Laura, greater perhaps than you, who have never been very rich, can imagine, and I doubt my capacity to be a good comforter to him though I have all the will.”

Two little spots of red appeared for the first time for many weeks on Miss Pritty’s cheeks, as she said in a tone of enthusiasm:—

“What! You not a good comforter? I’ve a good mind to refuse your invitation, since you dare to insinuate that I could in any degree supplement you in such a matter.”

“Well, then, we won’t make any more insinuations,” returned Aileen, with a sad smile; “but you’ll come—that’s settled. You know, dear, that we had lost everything, but ever since our jewel-case was found by—by—”

“By Edgar,” said Miss Pritty; “why don’t you go on?”

“Yes, by Mr Berrington,” continued Aileen, “ever since that, papa has been very hopeful. I don’t know exactly what his mind runs on, but I can see that he is making heaps of plans in regard to the future, and oh! You can’t think how glad and how thankful I am for the change. The state of dull, heartbreaking, weary depression that he fell into just after getting the news of our failure was beginning to undermine his health. I could see that plainly, and felt quite wretched about him. But now he is comparatively cheerful, and so gentle too. Do you know, I have been thinking a good deal lately of the psalmist’s saying, ‘it is good for me that I have been afflicted;’ and, in the midst of it all, our Heavenly Father remembered mercy, for it was He who sent our jewel-box, as if to prevent the burden from being too heavy for papa.”

Miss Pritty’s kind face beamed agreement with these sentiments.

“Now,” continued Aileen, “these jewels are, it seems, worth a great deal of money—much more than I had any idea of—for there are among them a number of very fine diamond rings and brooches. In fact, papa told me that he believed the whole were worth between eight and nine thousand pounds. This, you know, is a sum which will at least raise us above want, (poor Miss Pritty, well did she know that!)—though of course it will not enable us to live very luxuriously. How fortunate it was that these pirates—”

“Oh!” screamed Miss Pritty, suddenly, as she drew the clothes over her head.

“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Aileen; “are you going to be—”

“Oh! No, no, no,” said Miss Pritty, peeping out again; “how could you bring these dreadful creatures to my remembrance so abruptly? I had quite forgotten them for the time. Why, oh why did you banish from my mind that sweet idea of a charming cottage by the sea, and all its little unluxurious elegancies, and call up in its place the h–h–horrors of that village-nest—pig-sty—of the dreadful buccaneers? But it can’t be helped now,” added Miss Pritty, with a resigned shudder, “and we have the greatest reason to be thankful that their hope of a good ransom made them treat us as well as they did;—but go on, dear, you were saying that it was fortunate that these p–pirates—”

“That they did not sell the jewels or take any of them out of the box, or send them into the other prow which was sunk in deep water, where the divers could not have gone down to recover them.”

“Very true,” assented Miss Pritty.

At this point the cabin door again burst open, and the amiable stewardess appeared, bearing two cups of fresh tea, which she watched with the eyes of a tigress and the smile of an angel, while her body kept assuming sudden, and one would have thought impossible, attitudes.

“Now, ladies, do try some tea. Really you must. I insist on it. Why, you’ll both die if you don’t.”

Impressed with the force of this reasoning, both ladies made an effort, and got up on their respective elbows. They smiled incredulously at each other, and then, becoming suddenly grave, fell flat down on their backs, and remained so for some time without speaking.

“Now, try again; do try, it will do you so much good—really.”

Thus adjured they tried again and succeeded. Aileen took one sip of tea, spilt much of the rest in thrusting it hurriedly into the ready hands of the all but ubiquitous stewardess, and fell over with her face to the wall. Miss Pritty looked at her tea for a few seconds, earnestly. The stewardess, not being quite ubiquitous, failed to catch the cup as it was wildly held towards her. Miss Pritty therefore capsized the whole affair over her bed-clothes, and fell back with a deadly groan.

The stewardess did not lose temper. She was used to such things. If Miss Pritty had capsized her intellect over the bed-clothes, the stewardess would only have smiled, and wiped it up with a napkin.

“You’ll be better soon, Miss,” said the amiable woman, as she retired with the débris.

The self-acting door shut her out with a bang of contemptuous mockery, and the poor ladies were once more left alone in their misery.