Part 62 (1/2)
The Captain's words spread, and caused considerable excitement. On board the Barbara Lane were many gentlemen who had begun to be shamefaced over their panic, and these went in a body to the Captain and asked him to communicate with the 'Juanita'. Whereupon a certain number of whistles were sounded, and the Barbara's bows headed for the other side of the channel.
As the Juanita drew near, Virginia saw the square figure and clean, smooth-shaven face of Captain Lige standing in front of his wheel-house Peace crept back into her soul, and she tingled with joy as the bells clanged and the bucket-planks churned, and the great New Orleans packet crept slowly to the Barbara's side.
”You ain't goin' in, Brent?” shouted the Barbara's captain.
”Why not?” responded Mr. Brent. At the sound of his voice Virginia could have wept.
”The Dutch are sacking the city,” said Vance. ”Didn't they tell you?”
”The Dutch--h.e.l.l!” said Mr. Brent, calmly. ”Who's afraid of the Dutch?”
A general t.i.tter went along the guards, and Virginia blushed. Why could not the Captain see her?
”I'm on my reg'lar trip, of course,” said Vance. Out there on the sunlit river the situation seemed to call for an apology.
”Seems to be a little more loaded than common,” remarked Captain Lige, dryly, at which there was another general laugh.
”If you're really goin' up,” said Captain Vance, ”I reckon there's a few here would like to be ma.s.sacred, if you'll take 'em.”
”Certainly,” answered Mr. Brent; ”I'm bound for the barbecue.” And he gave a command.
While the two great boats were manoeuvring, and slas.h.i.+ng with one wheel and the other, the gongs sounding, Virginia ran into the cabin.
”Oh, Aunt Lillian,” she exclaimed, ”here is Captain Lige and the Juanita, and he is going to take us back with him. He says there is no danger.”
It its unnecessary here to repeat the moral persuasion which Virginia used to get her aunt up and dressed. That lady, when she had heard the whistle and the gongs, had let her imagination loose. Turning her face to the wall, she was in the act of repeating her prayers as her niece entered.
A big stevedore carried her down two decks to where the gang-plank was thrown across. Captain Lige himself was at the other end. His face lighted, Pus.h.i.+ng the people aside, he rushed across, s.n.a.t.c.hed the lady from the negro's arms, crying:
”Jinny! Jinny Carvel! Well, if this ain't fortunate.” The stevedore's services were required for Mammy Easter. And behind the burly s.h.i.+eld thus formed, a stoutish gentleman slipped over, all unnoticed, with a carpet-bag in his hand It bore the initials E. H.
The plank was drawn in. The great wheels began to turn and hiss, the Barbara's pa.s.sengers waved good-by to the foolhardy lunatics who had elected to go back into the jaws of destruction. Mrs. Colfax was put into a cabin; and Virginia, in a glow, climbed with Captain Lige to the hurricane deck. There they stood for a while in silence, watching the broad stern of the Barbara growing smaller. ”Just to think,” Miss Carvel remarked, with a little hysterical sigh, ”just to think that some of those people brought bronze clocks instead of tooth-brushes.”
”And what did you bring, my girl?” asked the Captain, glancing at the parcel she held so tightly under her arm.
He never knew why she blushed so furiously.
CHAPTER XXII. THE STRAINING OF ANOTHER FRIENDs.h.i.+P
Captain Lige asked but two questions: where was the Colonel, and was it true that Clarence had refused to be paroled? Though not possessing over-fine susceptibilities, the Captain knew a mud-drum from a lady's watch, as he himself said. In his solicitude for Virginia, he saw that she was in no state of mind to talk of the occurrences of the last few days. So he helped her to climb the little stair that winds to the top of the texas,--that sanctified roof where the pilot-house squats. The girl clung to her bonnet Will you like her any the less when you know that it was a shovel bonnet, with long red ribbons that tied under her chin? It became her wonderfully. ”Captain Lige,” she said, almost tearfully, as she took his arm, ”how I thank heaven that you came up the river this afternoon!”
”Jinny,” said the Captain, ”did you ever know why cabins are called staterooms?”
”Why, no,” answered she, puzzled.
”There was an old fellow named Shreve who ran steamboats before Jackson fought the redcoats at New Orleans. In Shreve's time the cabins were curtained off, just like these new-fangled sleeping-car berths. The old man built wooden rooms, and he named them after the different states, Kentuck, and Illinois, and Pennsylvania. So that when a fellow came aboard he'd say: 'What state am I in, Cap?' And from this river has the name spread all over the world--stateroom. That's mighty interesting,”
said Captain Lige.