A High Wind in Jamaica - Richard Hughes [70]
But now they were alongside the steamer: and soon they were mounting a rope ladder to her deck.
What a long way up it was! But at last they were all on board.
The little boat returned to the schooner.
The children never once looked after it.
And well might they forget it. For exciting as it had been to go onto a ship of any kind for the first time, to find themselves on this steamer was infinitely more so. The luxury of it! The white paint! The doors! The windows! The stairs! The brass!--A fairy palace, no: but a mundane wonder of a quite unimagined kind.
But they had little time now to take in the details. All the passengers, wild with curiosity, were gathered round them in a ring. As the dirty, disheveled little mites were handed one by one on board, a gasp went up. The story of the capture of the _Clorinda_ by as fiendish a set of buccaneers as any in the past that roamed the same Caribbean was well known: and how the little innocents on board her had been taken and tortured to death before the eyes of the impotent captain. To see now face to face the victims of so foul a murder was for them too a thrill of the first water.
The tension was first broken by a beautiful young lady in a muslin dress. She sank on her knees beside little Harry, and folded him in her delicate arms.
"The little angel!" she murmured. "You poor little man, what horrors you have been through! How will you ever forget them?"
As if that were the signal, all the lady passengers fell on the astonished children and pitied them: while the men, less demonstrative, stood around with lumps in their throats.
Bewildered at first, it was not long before they rose to the occasion--as children generally will, when they find themselves the butt of indiscriminate adoration. Bless you, they were kings and queens! They were so sleepy they could hardly keep their eyes open: but they were not going to bed, not they! They had never been treated like this before. Heaven alone knew how long it would last. Best not waste a minute of it.
It was not long before they ceased even to be surprised, became convinced that it was all their right and due. They were very important people--quite unique.
Only Emily stood apart, shy, answering questions uncomfortably. She did not seem to be able to throw herself into her importance with the same zest as the others.
Even the passengers' children joined in the fuss and admiration: perhaps realizing the opportunity which the excitement gave of avoiding their own bed-time. They began to bring (probably not without suggestion) their toys, as offerings to these new gods: and vied with each other in their generosity.
A shy little boy of about her own age, with brown eyes and a nice smile, his long hair brushed smooth as silk, his clothes neat and sweet-smelling, sidled up to Rachel.
"What's your name?" she asked him.
"Harold."
She told him hers.
"How much do you weigh?" he asked her.
"I don't know."
"You look rather heavy. May I see if I can lift you?"
"Yes."
He clasped his arms round her stomach from behind, leant back, and staggered a few paces with her. Then he set her down, the friendship cemented.
Emily stood apart; and for some reason every one unconsciously respected her reserve. But suddenly something seemed to snap in her heart. She flung herself face-downwards on the deck--not crying, but kicking convulsively. It was a huge great stewardess who picked her up and carried her, still quivering from head to foot, down to a neat, clean cabin. There, soothing and talking to her without ceasing, she undressed her, and washed her with warm water, and put her to bed.
Emily's head felt different to any way it had ever felt before: hardly as if it were her own. It sang, and went round like a wheel, without so much as with your leave or by your leave. But her body, on the other hand, was more than usually sensitive, absorbing the tender, smooth coolness of the sheets, the softness of the mattress, as a thirsty horse sucks up water. Her limbs drank in comfort at every pore: it seemed as if she could never be sated with