THERE is perhaps no form of life in which men and women of the present day frequently find themselves for a time existing, so unlike their customary conventional life, as that experienced on board the large ocean steamers. On the voyages so made, separate friendships are formed and separate enmities are endured. Certain lines of temporary politics are originated by the energetic, and intrigues, generally innocent in their conclusions, are carried on with the keenest spirit by those to whom excitement is necessary; whereas the idle and torpid sink into insignificance and general contempt,—as it is their lot to do on board ship as in other places. But the enjoyments and activity of such a life do not display themselves till the third or fourth day of the voyage. The men and women at first{334} regard each with distrust and illconcealed dislike. They by no means anticipate the strong feelings which are to arise, and look forward to ten, fifteen, or twenty days of gloom or sea-sickness. Sea-sickness disappears, as a general condition, on the evening of the second day, and the gloom about noon on the fourth. Then the men begin to think that the women are not so ugly, vulgar, and insipid; and the women drop their monosyllables, discontinue the close adherence to their own niches, which they first observed, and become affable, perhaps even beyond their wont on shore. And alliances spring up among the men themselves. On their first entrance to this new world, they generally regard each other with marked aversion, each thinking that those nearest to him are low fellows, or perhaps worse; but by the fourth day, if not sooner, every man has his two or three intimate friends with whom he talks and smokes, and to whom he communicates those peculiar politics, and perhaps intrigues, of his own voyage. The female friendships are slower in their growth, for the suspicion of women is perhaps stronger than that of men; but when grown they also are stronger, and exhibit themselves sometimes in instances of feminine affection.

But the most remarkable alliances are those made between gentlemen and ladies. This is a matter of{335} course on board ship quite as much as on shore, and it is of such an alliance that the present tale purports to tell the story. Such friendships, though they may be very dear, can seldom be very lasting. Though they may be full of sweet romance,—for people become very romantic among the discomforts of a sea-voyage—such romance is generally short-lived and delusive, and occasionally is dangerous.

There are several of these great ocean routes, of which by the common consent, as it seems, of the world, England is the centre. There is the Great Eastern line, running from Southampton across the Bay of Biscay and up the Mediterranean. It crosses the Isthmus of Suez, and branches away to Australia, to India, to Ceylon, and to China. There is the great American line, traversing the Atlantic to New York and Boston with the regularity of clockwork. The voyage here is so much a matter of everyday routine, that romance has become scarce upon the route. There are one or two other North American lines, perhaps open to the same objection. Then there is the line of packets to the African coast,—very romantic as I am given to understand; and there is the great West-Indian route, to which the present little history is attached,—great, not on account of our poor West Indian Islands, which cannot at the present moment make anything{336} great, but because it spreads itself out from thence to Mexico and Cuba, to Guiana and the republics of Grenada and Venezuela, to Central America, the Isthmus of Panama, and from thence to California, Vancouver’s Island, Peru and Chili.

It may be imagined how various are the tribes which leave the shores of Great Britain by this route. There are Frenchmen for the French sugar islands, as a rule not very romantic; there are old Spaniards, Spaniards of Spain, seeking to renew their fortunes amidst the ruins of their former empire; and new Spaniards—Spaniards, that is, of the American republics, who speak Spanish, but are unlike the Don both in manners and physiognomy,—men and women with a touch perhaps of Indian blood, very keen after dollars, and not much given to the graces of life. There are Dutchmen too, and Danes, going out to their own islands. There are citizens of the stars and stripes, who find their way everywhere—and, alas! perhaps, now also citizens of the new Southern flag, with the palmetto leaf. And there are Englishmen of every shade and class, and Englishwomen also.

It is constantly the case that women are doomed to make the long voyage alone. Some are going out to join their husbands, some to find a husband, some few peradventure to leave a husband. Girls who have been{337} educated at home in England, return to their distant homes across the Atlantic, and others follow their relatives who have gone before them as pioneers into a strange land. It must not be supposed that these females absolutely embark in solitude, putting their feet upon the deck without the aid of any friendly arm. They are generally consigned to some prudent elder, and appear as they first show themselves on the ship to belong to a party. But as often as not their real loneliness shows itself after awhile. The prudent elder is not, perhaps, congenial; and by the evening of the fourth day a new friendship is created.

Not a long time since such a friendship was formed under the circumstances which I am now about to tell. A young man—not very young, for he had turned his thirtieth year, but still a young man—left Southampton by one of the large West Indian steam-boats, purposing to pass over the Isthmus of Panama, and thence up to California and Vancouver’s Island. It would be too long to tell the cause which led to these distant voyagings. Suffice to say, it was not the accursed hunger after gold—auri sacra fames—which so took him; nor had he any purpose of permanently settling himself in those distant colonies of Great Britain. He was at the time a widower, and perhaps his home was bitter to him without the{338} young wife whom he had early lost. As he stepped on board he was accompanied by a gentleman some fifteen years his senior, who was to be the companion of his sleeping apartment as far as St. Thomas. The two had been introduced to each other, and therefore appeared as friends on board the “Serrapiqui;” but their acquaintance had commenced in Southampton, and my hero, Ralph Forrest by name, was alone in the world as he stood looking over the side of the ship at the retreating shores of Hampshire.

“I say, old fellow, we’d better see about our places,” said his new friend, slapping him on his back. Mr. Matthew Morris was an old traveller, and knew how to become intimate with his temporary allies at a very short notice. A long course of travelling had knocked all bashfulness out of him, and when he had a mind to do so he could make any man his brother in half an hour, and any woman his sister in ten minutes.

“Places? what places?” said Forrest.

“A pretty fellow you are to go to California. If you don’t look sharper than that you’ll get little to drink and nothing to eat till you come back again. Don’t you know the ship’s as full as ever she can hold?”

Forrest acknowledged that she was full.

“There are places at table for about a hundred, and{339} we have a hundred and thirty on board. As a matter of course those who don’t look sharp will have to scramble. However, I’ve put cards on the plates and taken the seats. We had better go down and see that none of these Spanish fellows oust us.” So Forrest descended after his friend, and found that the long tables were already nearly full of expectant dinner-eaters. When he took his place a future neighbour informed him, not in the most gracious voice, that he was encroaching on a lady’s seat; and when he immediately attempted to leave that which he held, Mr. Matthew Morris forbade him to do so. Thus a little contest arose, which, however, happily was brought to a close without bloodshed. The lady was not present at the moment, and the grumpy gentleman agreed to secure for himself a vacant seat on the other side.

For the first three days the lady did not show herself. The grumpy gentleman, who, as Forrest afterwards understood, was the owner of stores in Bridgetown, Barbadoes, had other ladies with him also. First came forth his daughter, creeping down to dinner on the second day, declaring that she would be unable to eat a morsel, and prophesying that she would be forced to retire in five minutes. On this occasion, however, she agreeably surprised herself and her friends. Then came{340} the grumpy gentleman’s wife, and the grumpy gentleman’s wife’s brother—on whose constitution the sea seemed to have an effect quite as violent as on that of the ladies; and lastly, at breakfast on the fourth day, appeared Miss Viner, and took her place as Mr. Forrest’s neighbour at his right hand.

He had seen her before on deck, as she lay on one of the benches, vainly endeavouring to make herself comfortable, and had remarked to his companion that she was very unattractive and almost ugly. Dear young ladies, it is thus that men always speak of you when they first see you on board ship! She was disconsolate, sick at heart, and ill at ease in body also. She did not like the sea. She did not in the least like the grumpy gentleman in whose hands she was placed; she did not, especially, like the grumpy gentleman’s wife; and she altogether hated the grumpy gentleman’s daughter, who was the partner of her berth. That young lady had been very sick and very selfish; and Miss Viner had been very sick also, and perhaps equally selfish. They might have been angels, and yet have hated each other under such circumstances. It was no wonder that Mr. Forrest thought her ugly as she twisted herself about on the broad bench, vainly striving to be comfortable.{341}

“She’ll brighten up wonderfully before we’re in the tropics,” said Mr. Morris. “And you won’t find her so bad then. It’s she that is to sit next you.”

“Heaven forbid!” said Forrest. But, nevertheless, he was very civil to her when she did come down on the fourth morning. On board the West Indian Packets, the world goes down to its meals. In crossing between Liverpool and the States, the world goes up to them.

Miss Viner was by no means a very young lady. She also was nearly thirty. In guessing her age on board the ship the ladies said that she was thirty-six, but the ladies were wrong. She was an Irish woman, and when seen on shore, in her natural state, and with all her wits about her, was by no means without attraction. She was bright-eyed, with a clear dark skin, and good teeth; her hair was of a dark brown and glossy, and there was a touch of feeling and also of humour about her mouth, which would have saved her from Mr. Forrest’s ill-considered criticism, had he first met her under more favourable circumstances.

“You’ll see a good deal of her,” Mr. Morris said to him, as they began to prepare themselves for luncheon, by a cigar immediately after breakfast. “She’s going across the isthmus and down to Peru.”{342}

“How on earth do you know?”

“I pretty well know where they’re all going by this time. Old Grumpy told me so. He has her in tow as far as St. Thomas, but knows nothing about her. He gives her up there to the captain. You’ll have a chance of making yourself very agreeable as you run across with her to the Spanish main.”

Mr. Forrest replied that he did not suppose he should know her much better than he did now; but he made no further remark as to her ugliness. She had spoken a word or two to him at table, and he had seen that her eyes were bright, and had found that her tone was sweet.

“I also am going to Panama,” he said to her, on the morning of the fifth day. The weather at that time was very fine, and the October sun as it shone on them, while hour by hour they made more towards the South, was pleasant and genial. The big ship lay almost without motion on the bosom of the Atlantic, as she was driven through the waters at the rate of twelve miles per hour. All was as pleasant now as things can be on board a ship, and Forrest had forgotten that Miss Viner had seemed so ugly to him when he first saw her. At this moment, as he spoke to her, they were running through the Azores, and he had been assisting her with his{343} field-glass to look for orange-groves on their sloping shores, orange-groves they had not succeeded in seeing, but their failure had not disturbed their peace.

“I also am going to Panama.”

“Are you, indeed?” said she. “Then I shall not feel so terribly alone and disconsolate. I have been looking forward with such fear to that journey on from St. Thomas.”

“You shall not be disconsolate, if I can help it,” he said. “I am not much of a traveller myself, but what I can do I will.”

“Oh, thank you!”

“It is a pity Mr. Morris is not going on with you. He’s at home everywhere, and knows the way across the isthmus as well as he does down Regent Street.”

“Your friend, you mean!”

“My friend, if you call him so; and indeed I hope he is, for I like him. But I don’t know more of him than I do of you. I also am as much alone as you are. Perhaps more so.”

“But,” she said, “a man never suffers in being alone.”

“Oh! does he not? Don’t think me uncivil, Miss Viner, if I say that you may be mistaken in that. You{344} feel your own shoe when it pinches, but do not realise the tight boot of your neighbour.”

“Perhaps not,” said she. And then there was a pause, during which she pretended to look again for the orange-groves. “But there are worse things, Mr. Forrest, than being alone in the world. It is often a woman’s lot to wish that she were let alone.” Then she left him and retreated to the side of the grumpy gentleman’s wife, feeling perhaps that it might be prudent to discontinue a conversation, which, seeing that Mr. Forrest was quite a stranger to her, was becoming particular.

“You’re getting on famously, my dear,” said the lady from Barbadoes.

“Pretty well, thank you, Ma’am,” said Miss Viner.

“Mr. Forrest seems to be making himself quite agreeable. I tell Amelia,”—Amelia was the young lady to whom in their joint cabin Miss Viner could not reconcile herself,—“I tell Amelia that she is wrong not to receive attentions from gentlemen on board ship. If it is not carried too far,” and she put great emphasis on the “too far,”—“I see no harm in it.”

“Nor I, either,” said Miss Viner.

“But then Amelia is so particular.”

“The best way is to take such things as they come,” said Miss Viner,—perhaps meaning that such things{345} never did come in the way of Amelia. “If a lady knows what she is about she need not fear a gentleman’s attentions.”

“That’s just what I tell Amelia; but then, my dear, she has not had so much experience as you and I.”

Such being the amenities which passed between Miss Viner and the prudent lady who had her in charge, it was not wonderful that the former should feel ill at ease with her own “party,” as the family of the Grumpy Barbadian was generally considered to be by those on board.

“You’re getting along like a house on fire with Miss Viner,” said Matthew Morris, to his young friend.

“Not much fire I can assure you,” said Forrest.

“She aint so ugly as you thought her?”

“Ugly!—no! she’s not ugly. I don’t think I ever said she was. But she is nothing particular as regards beauty.”

“No; she won’t be lovely for the next three days to come, I dare say. By the time you reach Panama, she’ll be all that is perfect in woman. I know how these things go.”

“Those sort of things don’t go at all quickly with me,” said Forrest, gravely. “Miss Viner is a very interesting young woman, and as it seems that her route and mine{346} will be together for some time, it is well that we should be civil to each other. And the more so, seeing that the people she is with are not congenial to her.”

“No; they are not. There is no young man with them. I generally observe that on board ship no one is congenial to unmarried ladies except unmarried men. It is a recognised nautical rule. Uncommon hot, isn’t it? We are beginning to feel the tropical air. I shall go and cool myself with a cigar in the fiddle.” The “fiddle” is a certain part of the ship devoted to smoking, and thither Mr. Morris betook himself. Forrest, however, did not accompany him, but going forward into the bow of the vessel, threw himself along upon the sail, and meditated on the loneliness of his life.

On board the Serrapiqui, the upper tier of cabins opened on to a long gallery, which ran round that part of the ship, immediately over the saloon, so that from thence a pleasant inspection could be made of the viands as they were being placed on the tables. The custom on board these ships is for two bells to ring preparatory to dinner, at an interval of half an hour. At the sound of the first, ladies would go to their cabins to adjust their toilets; but as dressing for dinner is not carried to an extreme at sea, these operations are generally over before the second bell, and the lady passengers would generally assemble{347} in the balcony for some fifteen minutes before dinner. At first they would stand here alone, but by degrees they were joined by some of the more enterprising of the men, and so at last a kind of little drawing-room was formed. The cabins of Miss Viner’s party opened to one side of this gallery, and that of Mr. Morris and Forrest on the other. Hitherto Forrest had been contented to remain on his own side, occasionally throwing a word across to the ladies on the other; but on this day he boldly went over as soon as he had washed his hands and took his place between Amelia and Miss Viner.

“We are dreadfully crowded here, Ma’am,” said Amelia.

“Yes, my dear, we are,” said her mother. “But what can one do?”

“There’s plenty of room in the ladies’ cabin,” said Miss Viner. Now if there be one place on board a ship more distasteful to ladies than another, it is the ladies’ cabin. Mr. Forrest stood his ground, but it may be doubted whether he would have done so had he fully understood all that Amelia had intended.

Then the last bell rang. Mr. Grumpy gave his arm to Miss Grumpy. The brother-in-law gave his arm to Amelia, and Forrest did the same to Miss Viner. She hesitated for a moment, and then took it, and by so{348} doing transferred herself mentally and bodily from the charge of the prudent and married Mr. Grumpy to that of the perhaps imprudent, and certainly unmarried Mr. Forrest. She was wrong. A kind-hearted, motherly old lady from Jamaica, who had seen it all, knew that she was wrong, and wished that she could tell her so. But there are things of this sort which kind-hearted old ladies cannot find it in their hearts to say. After all, it was only for the voyage. Perhaps Miss Viner was imprudent, but who in Peru would be the wiser? Perhaps, indeed, it was the world that was wrong, and not Miss Viner. “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” she said to herself, as she took his arm, and leaning on it, felt that she was no longer so lonely as she had been. On that day she allowed him to give her a glass of wine out of his decanter. “Hadn’t you better take mine, Miss Viner?” asked Mr. Grumpy, in a loud voice, but before he could be answered, the deed had been done.

“Don’t go too fast, old fellow,” Morris said to our hero that night, as they were walking the deck together before they turned in. “One gets into a hobble in such matters before one knows where one is.”

“I don’t think I have anything particular to fear,” said Forrest.

“I dare say not, only keep your eyes open. Such{349} haridans as Mrs. Grumpy allow any latitude to their tongues out in these diggings. You’ll find that unpleasant tidings will be put on board the ship going down to Panama, and everybody’s eye will be upon you.” So warned, Mr. Forrest did put himself on his guard, and the next day and a half his intimacy with Miss Viner progressed but little. These were, probably, the dullest hours that he had on the whole voyage.

Miss Viner saw this and drew back. On the afternoon of that second day she walked a turn or two on deck with the weak brother-in-law, and when Mr. Forrest came near her, she applied herself to her book. She meant no harm; but if she were not afraid of what people might say, why should he be so? So she turned her shoulder towards him at dinner, and would not drink of his cup.

“Have some of mine, Miss Viner,” said Mr. Grumpy, very loudly. But on that day Miss Viner drank no wine.

The sun sets quickly as one draws near to the tropics, and the day was already gone, and the dusk had come on, when Mr. Forrest walked out upon the deck that evening a little after six. But the night was beautiful and mild, and there was a hum of many voices from the benches. He was already uncomfortable, and sore with{350} a sense of being deserted. There was but one person on board the ship that he liked, and why should he avoid her and be avoided? He soon perceived where she was standing. The Grumpy family had a bench to themselves, and she was opposite to it, on her feet, leaning against the side of the vessel. “Will you walk this evening, Miss Viner?” he asked.

“I think not,” she answered.

“Then I shall persevere in asking till you are sure. It will do you good, for I have not seen you walking all day.”

“Have you not? Then I will take a turn. Oh, Mr. Forrest, if you knew what it was to have to live with such people as those.” And then, out of that, on that evening, there grew up between them something like the confidence of real friendship. Things were told such as none but friends do tell to one another, and warm answering words were spoken such as the sympathy of friendship produces. Alas, they were both foolish; for friendship and sympathy should have deeper roots.

She told him all her story. She was going out to Peru to be married to a man who was nearly twenty years her senior. It was a long engagement, of ten years standing. When first made, it was made as being contingent on certain circumstances. An option of escaping from it{351} had then been given to her, but now there was no longer an option. He was rich and she was penniless. He had even paid her passage-money and her outfit. She had not at last given way and taken these irrevocable steps till her only means of support in England had been taken from her. She had lived the last two years with a relative who was now dead. “And he also is my cousin,—a distant cousin,—you understand that.”

“And do you love him?”

“Love him! What; as you loved her whom you have lost?—as she loved you when she clung to you before she went? No; certainly not. I shall never know anything of that love.”

“And is he good?”

“He is a hard man. Men become hard when they dea............