into the night. There was the night before us, around us, beneath us not a star in the sky, only heavy, angry clouds. Every now and then the sea came with a tug and whirl, and sometimes forced its way over the bow. Far up on the yards were the lights to warn other ships of our coming. There, perched in the rigging, was a dripping Jack Tar, staring into the night; now and then a call is heard a call in some dialect unknown to me, which is answered from the bridge. But on the forecastle one of my fair, peach-faced young friends in the steerage, a midshipman, keeps his dripping watch, staring into the night. On the quarterdeck my old friend, the quartermaster, with his gray head and grave face, holds watch and ward, staring into the night. Somehow I have great confidence in the quartermaster, and feel safe when I see him on deck. There is something so respectable and fatherly about this quartermaster, that you instinctively depend upon him in a storm. In the wardroom some of the officers are writing, others are trying to read. As we come from the deck there is a run of comments and criticisms in that fresh Saxon sailor method of speech which breathes of the sea. The night is very dark, relieved only by the phosphorescent flashes of the waves and a 'burst of lightning, which illumines the horizon toward Sicily and Crete. The captain comes out and looks into the night, and visits the chart room and the binnacle, and goes up to the bridge to talk with Hadden and stare into the night. I suppose the oracle has given him some response, for he returns to the cabin. The General is quite cheerful over his zeal and success as a sailor, and is disposed to vaunt his seamanship when one of us proposes to go to bed to prevent further uneasiness. The lady of our ship has been unable to leave her cabin on account of the storm, although all reports concur in saying that she proves to be an admirable sailor. The captain overrules one of her suggestions-that we should come to an anchor -by the statement that it would do no good, and the General vetoes another suggestion-that we should return to Malta-by the argument that we are as near to Alexandria as to Malta, and nothing would be gained by returning. The good ship strains and twists, and keeps on in her course. The chief engineer, who is an amiable man and never complains, now finds fault with the water for coming into the cabin. You see it has been coming in for an hour, and when the boys have finished swabbing I suppose it will come in again. I repeat that, to paraphrase Lord Derby's words, "A man who would say he liked the sea, would say anything." I am looking at my cot, which swings over my head as I write. I wonder if I am really going to climb into it to-night without coming out on the other side, and in among the pitchers and charts in Lieutenant Strong's room. I wonder if the rain will come through the blankets as it did last night. I wonder if the cot in the midnight watches will begin a series of battering-ram assaults on the dining table, as it did the night before, assaults which were only terminated by the engineering skill of Mr. Damenhorser. Well, we might as well be cheerful about it. I try and find a light side to it, although Mr. Caldwell makes the profound observation that nothing could be worse than a ship when it rains. Caldwell, as an executive officer, is in an exceedingly cheerful mood to-night, arising from the fact that he has a good deal to do. Well, I would much rather have him command the ship than myself, my disposition being to vote for Mrs. Grant's proposition to bring the ship to anchor. But since I am not in command, and since the ship will go cn like a fate, right on to the shores of Pho nicia, I try and kill an hour by writing this paragraph and giving you a sketch of one of our evenings at sea. I suppose there must be a fascination in this life, if we could only see it. I still think to repeat, that, a man who would say he liked the sea would say anything. In this opinion I am sustained by my noble friend, the Marquis. That gentleman informed us all this morning that the English were all fools (fools emphatically expressed) for keeping yachts, and that if he had $1,000,000 a year he would never keep a yacht. But my noble friend was in deep depression of spirits at the time. He had been lying all the afternoon in a corner on the lower deck, near the engine, disturbed by the noise of the machinery and the smell of the oil. He had tried to dine, and no one knows better the philosophy of dinner, but he retreated with the soup. A man-even a man with the naturally broad and generous mind of the Marquis-would be apt to take a dismal view of yachting. If I were sure there was no rain in my cot I might find reasons for owning a yacht. But rain in one's cot and an unruly sea outside and water oozing along the cabin floors and a general feeling of inexpressible discomfort, the feeling that you know where you are now, but you are not sure about the minute after next, these are incidents tending to dampen the enthusiasm of any man-of any man in this ship unless it is Caldwell, who, as I remarked, has never been so happy and cheerful as since the storm came. I knew when he came down stairs five minutes ago, all wreathed in smiles, that the barometer was going down, and that his heart was leaping with the thought that he might be on the bridge all night battling with the winds. If I must go to sea I want a calm sea. I never saw one too calm for my nerves, not even on the Delaware and Raritan Canal. I like sunshine, and when I was in Naples found reasons for envying the poor, ragged beggars who had gorged themselves with maccaroni and were sleeping in the sun. I like to sleep in a bed which does not swing like a pendulum, and into which the rain does not fall. I like a hansom cab. I felt like saying to General Graut the other evening, when he was talking about some of his generals, that if I could only command an army in a hansom cab, I would do wonders. I do not like rain, or cold, or tumbling seas. One of the reasons which made me welcome this trip was the certainty that I would pass from the fogs of London into the enrapturing sunshine of France and Italy. Well, I have not found the sunshine yet, as I said to myself in an ironical mood, when I found myself rowing ashore in tropical Malta wearing a heavy English ulster. I wonder if I will find it in Egypt, toward which we are driving, driving, driving through the cold, unrelenting rain. I am afraid I shall do the Mediterranean an injustice if I leave the impression that it is always an ugly sea. When I wrote the last paragragh, I had just come in from the rain. But this morning the rain has gone, and our sea is as gentle as a mill pond, and we begin to rejoice in sun and cloudless skies. The old ship brightens up like a spring morning, and the deck swarms with sailors putting everything in order. Give me a man-of-war for putting everything in order. There is no end to the washing, the scrubbing, the cleaning of brass. In a short time the traces of the storm are removed and we have quarters. The marine guard comes to its post-every man as fresh as a new pin -and as Captain Fagan carefully inspects the line, our General notes that the line is well kept and the men in good discipline. The sailors at their guns, the engineers at their quarters, every man at his post, the inspection goes on, and reports are made. One or two poor fellows |