Gil the Gunner | Page 8

and, crossing over, I found the right cabin
at last, seized the handle sharply, for a man was coming along with
more luggage, and, turning the fastening, I was about to dive in, but the
door was fast, and a quick, authoritative voice cried from within--

"Well, what is it?"
"Open this door," I said as sharply, for I felt irritated at being shut out
of my place of refuge from the noise and misery of the deck.
There was the sound of a bolt shooting back, the door was thrown open,
and I was face to face in the dim light with a tall, dark, youngish man,
whose expression was stern and severe in the extreme.
"Well, sir," he said shortly, "what is it?"
"What is it?" I cried angrily, with a sharp look at my luggage. "What
are you doing here? Why is this door fastened?"
He looked at me quite fiercely for a few moments, and then his face
softened a little, and he smiled, but it was a cold, wintry sort of facial
sunshine.
"Ah, I see," he said, "you are Mr Vincent, I suppose?"
"Yes, I am, sir, and that is my luggage. What then?"
"Only that my name is Brace, and I suppose we are to be
fellow-passengers."
"I--I--beg your pardon," I stammered, with my face turning scarlet.
"There is no need," he said coldly. "Perhaps it was my fault for
fastening the door."
He turned away, stooped down to a trunk in which glistened a bunch of
keys, turned the lock, and then altered his mind and unlocked the trunk,
and took out his keys.
"No," he said rising, "there will be no need for that."
He turned coldly, and went out of the cabin, leaving me with the
sensation that I had behaved rudely and insolently to an officer who
was my superior, and under whose orders I supposed I was to be.

"Nice beginning," I said to myself, and I sat down on one of my own
trunks, feeling anything but comfortable, as I came to the conclusion
that I had made an enemy who would pay me handsomely during the
voyage.
"This is a happy sort of place," I muttered, as I sat listening to the
banging of cabin doors and shouting of people for stewards and others,
and angry complaints about being kept waiting; and all the time there
was a stamping, tramping, and rattling going on overhead that was
maddening.
And there I sat, gazing dreamily at the little round pane of glass which
lit the cabin, till I grew so hot and weary of the stuffy little cupboard of
a place, that I got up and went on deck again, to find that the great
vessel had been cast loose, and that hawsers and capstans were being
used to work us out of the dock.
We were already some little distance from the dock wall, which was
crowded with the friends of the soldiers and sailors on board, those of
the passengers for the most part remaining to go down the river, while
the men thronged the bulwarks, and climbed to every point of vantage,
to respond, with shouts and cheers, to waving of hands and, bonnets
and the shrill good-byes.
"Everybody seems to have some one to say good-bye to him but me," I
thought again; and half pitying, half contemptuously, I leaned over the
side watching the little crowd of excited women and old men who
hurried along the dock quay so as to keep abreast of the vessel.
"A sad thing, too--saying good-bye," I thought. "Perhaps they'll never
come back and meet again, and--"
My heart seemed to stand still, and I clutched the edge of the bulwark
spasmodically, for all at once as I watched the women pressing along
the edge of the stone quay, their faces turned toward us as they cried
out to the men on board, I saw one young-looking thing wave her
handkerchief and then press it to her eyes, and in imagination I heard
her sobbing as she hurried on with the rest. But next instant I saw that

she had caught her foot in one of the ropes strained from the great ship
to the edge of the quay, and plunged forward headlong to strike the
water twenty feet below, and disappear.
A wild shriek from the quay was mingled with the excited shouts of the
men on board. Then orders were rapidly given, men ran here and there,
and amidst a great deal of shouting, preparations were made for
lowering down the nearest boat.
But all the time the huge East Indiaman, now steadily in motion, was
gliding slowly toward the dock entrance, and the unfortunate woman
had risen to the surface, and was beating the water slowly with