There were eight passengers and twenty-seven hands, counting captain and officers, on board the “Meteor;” in all, thirty-five souls.

In these days half that number of men would be thought ample to handle a ship of eleven hundred tons. Taking fourteen men as a ship’s company, we find—one, the cook, who is useless aloft; five ordinary seamen, equal to two able-bodied men; four ill and unable to leave their bunks; the remainder consist of the captain, two mates, and the carpenter. So that a summons for all hands to shorten sail, for example, brings forth about enough men to do the work of one yard—one yard, when there are twelve, exclusive of trysails, jibs, stun’sails, spanker, and staysails. This modern system of undermanning ships is an evil next in magnitude to that of sending crazy and leaky vessels to sea; and as many ships are lost for want of hands to work them on occasions which demand promptitude and muscle, as are lost by rotten planks and overcharged cargoes.

The passengers on board the “Meteor” consisted of four gentlemen, two ladies, a little boy, and a female servant. Of the gentlemen, one was a young man named Holland, who was going to America for no other purpose than to see Niagara; another was a merchant, who was to represent a London house in New York. He was accompanied by his wife and her maid. The third was a General in the United States Army, a fine old man with a chivalrous courtesy of manner and a handsome honest face, who had been picking up what professional hints he could find by a year’s sojourn in the military depÔts of Great Britain. The fourth male passenger was an actor, magnificently named Gerald Fitzmaurice St. Aubyn, in quest of more appreciative audiences in the New Country than his genius had encountered in the Old. The widow and her son completed the list.

It took these good people a very short time to settle down to their new life and adjust themselves to the novel conditions of existence that surrounded them. The ladies lay hidden at the first going off; and, although Mr. St. Aubyn put in a punctual appearance at meals and smoked a great quantity of cheroots, it must be admitted that he was peculiarly pensive for a comedian, whose genius, he affirmed, was chiefly at home in genteel farce, though he had enacted tragedy with applause.

The “Meteor” met with adverse winds, but brilliant weather, during the first few days. She tacked north and south, and crowded canvas to make headway, but, though her speed was great through the water, her actual progress was small.

“No matter,” said Captain Steel, patiently; “we may get a gale astern of us some of these hours, and then we’ll make up for lost time.”

But whilst the weather remained so beautiful, the wind brisk and the sea smooth, the passengers could hardly regret the delay. It was like yacht sailing—dry decks, steady motion, and always the pleasurable sense of swiftness inspired by the beaded foam crisping by and stretching like a tape astern. Now and again they signalled a ship homeward bound or journeying south. The widow’s little boy clapped his hands to see the bright flags flying at the mizzen-peak, and the ladies were lost in wonderment to think that those gay colours were a language as intelligible to those concerned in their interpretation as “How do you do?” and “Very well, thank you.”

The “Meteor” had a snug cuddy; and a hospitable sight was the dinner-table, with the white cloth covering the long board, the gleaming silver and glass, the fine claret jug (testimonial by former passengers to the captain), the colours of wines in decanters, the grinning negro always colliding with the steward, and the skipper’s rubicund face, relieved by soft white hair, at the head of the table, backed by the polished mizzen-mast. Overhead was the skylight, through which you might see the great sails towering to the heavens; and over the dinner table swung a globe of gold-fish between two baskets of ferns. There was a piano lashed abaft the mizzen-mast; and all around the cuddy were the cabins occupied by the passengers, the captain, the mates, with highly-varnished doors and white panels relieved with edgings of gold.

Everybody took an interest in the widow’s little boy, both because he was a pretty child, and because it was whispered about that he had lost his father but a few weeks ago. He and Holdsworth became great friends, as Holdsworth had said they would. Whenever it was the first mate’s watch on deck, the little fellow would paddle away from his mother’s side and come to him, and ask him to tell him stories, and show him the ship’s compass, at which he was never weary of looking. Then you might see Holdsworth on a hencoop, or the skylight, with the child upon his knee, coining nautical fairy-yarns of people who live under the sea, and ride in chariots composed of coral, to which fish with scales shining like precious stones are harnessed.

Sometimes the widow, whose name was Tennent, would come on deck and find them together, when she would sit beside them and listen with a smile to Holdsworth, whose stories the little boy Louis would on no account suffer his mamma to interrupt. And to repay him for his kindness to the child, and not more for that than because she admired his honest nature, and was won by his gentle and tender simplicity, she would lead him on, with a world of feminine tact, to talk of his wife, and comfort and make him happy with her sympathy, her interest, and her assurances.

She was a calm, gentle-faced woman, with a settled sorrow in the expression of her eyes that made her look older than she was, but her age would scarcely exceed thirty-six. She showed little inclination to converse with the other passengers, and would retire early at night, and in the daytime sit in quiet places about the deck, always with her boy beside her.

The merchant’s wife, on the other hand, Mrs. Ashton, was a gay, talkative woman, a showy dresser, and fond of a quiet boast, which her husband, a short man with a yellow beard, took care never to contradict. Mr. Holland began to pay her attention straightway, and then Mr. St. Aubyn stepped in with theatrical emphasis and smooth observations, like the speeches in comedies. Captain Steel, though very polite to this lady, inclined to Mrs. Tennent,—his sailor’s heart appreciating her defencelessness, and propounding all kinds of problems how best to amuse, please, and cheer her. But though she could not fail to like the honest skipper, she evidently preferred Holdsworth, who would go and talk to her for an hour at a time about Dolly, and then listen, with a face of kindliest sympathy, to little passages out of her own life.

And so a week went by, and the ship strove with the baffling winds, which blew directly from the quarter to which her bowsprit should have pointed, and captain and men began to chafe, finding the job of putting the ship about tiresome at last.

On the seventh day, about the hour of sunset, the wind fell, and the surface of the sea became polished as glass, though from the north-east there came, through the mighty expanse of water, a long and regular swell, which made the ship rise and fall as regularly as the breath of a sleeper.

“We shall have the wind from that quarter, I think, sir,” said Holdsworth to the skipper.

“Or is this an after-swell, Mr. Holdsworth?” suggested the skipper, sending his keen gaze across the sea to the horizon, where the sky was as blue as it was overhead.

There was no telling. This long and regular swell might be the precursor of a gale, or the effects of one that had passed. The barometer had fallen, but this might only indicate a southerly wind, not necessarily dirty weather. The heavens were perfectly tranquil; the day was fading into a serene and gloriously beautiful evening, with no hint in all its benign aspect to suggest the need of the slightest precaution.

Mrs. Ashton was at the piano, accompanying Mr. St. Aubyn to a song, which he sang so affectedly that some of the hands forward mimicked him, and the forecastle seemed full of guinea-pigs.

Her husband popped his head over the skylight and called to her to come and view the sunset. Up she came, escorted by Mr. Holland and the actor, flounced showily into a chair, and fell into a rapture.

“Oh, how beautiful! The sea looks like gold! doesn’t it, Captain Steel? See how red the sails are! Ah, if I could only paint! what fame such a picture as this would bring me.”

True; but then what manner of pigments was needful to reproduce the glory, the colour, the calm, the infinity of that wonderful scene!

The sun was sinking down a cloudless horizon, and was now a vast crimson ball, throbbing and quivering with his lower limb upon the sea-line. There was something overwhelming in the unspeakable majesty of his unattended descent. As the huge crimson body appeared to hang for some moments above the sea before dipping, even Mrs. Ashton held her tongue, and seemed impressed with the tremendous spectacle of loneliness submitted by the globe of fire sinking away from the sky with the vast solitude of the deep in the foreground. Far into the measureless ocean he had sunk a cone of fire, while the heights above and around him were dim with burning haze. The sails of the “Meteor” were yellow in the expiring light; her topmasts seemed veined with lines of flame; and the brass-work about her decks reflected innumerable suns, each with threads of glory about it, that blinded the eyes to encounter.

But even while they gazed the sun vanished, and darkness came with long strides across the deep, kindling the stars and transforming the masts and yards of the ship into phantom tracery as delicate as frostwork to look at.

“Upon my word!” exclaimed Mr. Holland in a tone of rapture, “that’s as fine a sight as I must hope to see anywhere.”

“If you could introduce a scene like that, Mr. St. Aubyn, on the stage, eh?” laughed the General.

“Why, as to that,” replied Mr. St. Aubyn, “let me tell you, General, that there are some very fine scenes to be found in the large theatres in London. In the second act of ‘Pizarro,’ as I saw it the other night at Drury Lane, there’s a scene representing the Temple of the Sun; the sun is setting—and God knows how they managed it, but the sun did sink, not like yonder one, but very finely in clouds, just as ‘Ataliba’ exclaims, drawing his sword, ‘Now, my brethren, my sons, my friends, I know your valour. Should ill success assail us.’”...

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Mr. Holland impatiently; “but I always considered ‘Pizarro,’ as a play, to be full of very poor rant. Who talks in real life like the fellows in that piece are made to talk?”

“My dear sir!” exclaimed Mr. St. Aubyn with a smile of contempt, “the stage is the arena of poetry; we are idealists.”...

“Because you never mean what you say,” said Mr. Ashton, lighting a cigar.

“Oh, excuse me,” rejoined Mr. St. Aubyn; “true actors are always in earnest. Siddons was.”

“I once met Sarah Siddons,” said Mrs. Ashton. “Do you remember, dear, at Lord Shortlands?” addressing her husband.

“I was only once at a theatre in my life,” observed Captain Steel, who had been listening to the conversation with an impressed face. “That was at Plymouth. They gave us our money’s worth. There was plenty of fighting and love-making, and two traitors, both of whom died game and covered with blood. There was a little too much gunpowder at the end; but I rather think they raised smoke to hide the acting, which fell off as the piece made headway. The best part of the entertainment, to my thinking, was a fight between two sailors in a private box. Mr. St. Aubyn, where do you gentlemen, when you are run through the body, stow all the blood you lose? That’s often puzzled me to think.”

“Oh, don’t let me hear,” cried Mrs. Ashton. “I hate to be told such secrets.”

“Captain,” said the General, “how long is this calm going to last?”

“All night, I am afraid. How’s her head?” sang out the captain.

“East-south-east, sir,” responded the man at the wheel.

“We’re homeward bound,” said the captain laughing; “the old girl wants to get back again.”

He walked away from the group, and stood near the wheel, gazing aloft and around. The passengers continued talking and laughing, their voices sounding unreal when listened to at a distance, and with the great, desolate, silent sea breathing around. The sails flapped lazily aloft, and the wheel-chains clanked from time to time as the vessel rose and fell. Mrs. Tennent came on deck, the captain joined her, and they walked up and down. On the other side of the deck paced the second mate. Forward were the dark shadows of some of the hands upon the forecastle, smoking pipes and talking in low voices.

The night had fallen darkly; there was no moon, but the stars were large and brilliant, and glittered in flakes of white light in the sea. Presently a fiddle was played in the forecastle, and a voice sang a mournful tune that sounded weirdly in the gloom, and with a muffled note. The air and voice were not without sweetness, but there was the melancholy in it which many songs popular among sailors have, and the wailing cadence was helped out by the ghostly sails rearing their glimmering spaces, and the subdued plash of the water about the bows, as the ship sank into the hollows of the swell.

Mrs. Tennent stopped, with the captain, at the poop-rail to listen.

“What odd music!” cried Mrs. Ashton. “It sounds as if some one were playing out in the sea there.”

“Let’s have the fiddler here,” said Mr. Holland. “I like to enlarge my mind by observation, and have never yet heard a real Jack Tar sing.”

“Oh yes! oh yes!” exclaimed Mrs. Ashton, while Mr. St. Aubyn called out, “I’ll go and fetch him.”

“Better stop where you are, sir,” said the skipper, drily; “the forecastle’s a dangerous hold for landsmen to put their heads into. Mr. Thompson,” he called to the second mate, “just go and send that fiddler aft here.”

Presently came the man, followed at a respectful distance by a crowd of his mates, who drew to the capstan on the quarterdeck, and waited for what was to follow.

The fiddler and vocalist was a stumpy seaman, with black whiskers, a hooked nose, and keen black eyes, dressed in loose canvas breaches, well smeared with tar, and a canvas shirt, with a belt about his middle, in which was a sheath-knife. He hailed from Southampton, but had gone so many voyages in every species of ships—Danish, French, Spanish, American—that he might fairly claim to belong to the whole world.

He scraped with his left foot, and stood bashfully awaiting orders, his glittering eyes travelling over the group of gentlemen and ladies.

“You’re wanted to sing a song, Daniels,” said Captain Steel.

“Ay, ay, sir. What might it be?”

“Something wild and plaintive,” suggested Mrs. Ashton.

“Give us a song about a sweetheart,” said Mr. Holland.

This was English to the sailor; so, after a few moments’ reflection, he screwed his fiddle into his neck, scraped a few bars, and then sang.

He did his best, and murmurs from time to time about the capstan illustrated enthusiastic appreciation in one portion of his audience at least. Those on the poop were more quiet, impressed by the peculiar wildness of the song, and the rough, uncouth melody of the tune.

The song was about a woman whose husband was a sailor. The sailor went away to sea, and did not come home, and she thought he had deserted her; so she put on man’s clothes, shipped on board a vessel as a “hand,” and went in search of him. One night she is on the forecastle, on the look-out. The watch are asleep; there’s not a breath of air:

The figure attached to the face rises, waist high, out of the water, and extends his hands.

And sure enough the phantom was Joey, who had not deserted her, as she had cruelly thought, but had been drowned in the very spot where the vessel she was on board of was becalmed. The song wound up with an injunction to all wives or sweethearts of sailors never to think that their Joes have played them false because they do not return to their homes.

The passengers thanked the man for his song, and Mrs. Ashton wanted another; but Captain Steel, holding that enough condescension had been exhibited, bade the singer go to the steward and get a “tot of grog.”

Much criticism followed; but all, with the exception of Mr. St. Aubyn, owned themselves impressed by the rough simplicity and tragical theme of the forecastle ballad.

“Pshaw!” cried the actor; “put the man on a stage before an audience, and he’d be hissed off. It’s the queer scratching of the catgut and the picturesque costume of the fellow that have pleased you. His voice isn’t good enough to get him the post of call-boy at a theatre.”

A warm argument followed this decision, and lasted nearly half an hour, during which the General and Mr. Ashton left the group; then the steward’s bell rang, and the passengers went below to their nightly potations and to munch sweet biscuits.