chance.

"Hoist away!" he yelled, and up went my darling, uttering one little
scream only as she soared.

"Lower away!" and by the line that was attached to the chair, she was
dragged through the gangway where I lost sight of her.

It was now my turn. The chair descended, and I sat upon it, not
without several yearning glances at the sloping side of the ship,
which, however, only satisfied me that there was no other method by
which I might enter the vessel than the chair, active as I was.

"Hoist away!" was shouted, and up I went, and I shall not readily
forget the sensation. My brains seemed to sink into my boots as I
mounted. I was hoisted needlessly high, almost to the yard-arm itself,
I fancy, through some blunder on the part of the men who manned the
"whip." For some breathless moments I dangled between heaven and
ocean, seeing nothing but grey sky and heaving waters. But the torture
was brief. I felt the chair sinking, saw the open gangway sweep past
me, and presently I was out of the chair at Grace's side, stared at by
some eighty or a hundred emigrants, all 'tweendecks passengers, who had
left the bulwarks to congregate on the main deck.

"Well, thank Heaven, here we are, anyway!" was my first exclamation to
Grace.

"It was a thousand times worse than the _Spitfire_ whilst it lasted,"
she answered.

"You behaved magnificently," said I.

"Will you step this way?" exclaimed a voice overhead.

On looking up I found that we were addressed by a short, somewhat
thick-set man, who stood at the rail that protected the forward
extremity of the poop deck. This was the person who had talked to us
through the speaking-trumpet, and I at once guessed him to be the
captain. There were about a dozen first-class passengers gazing at us
from either side of him, two or three of whom were ladies. I took
Grace by the hand, and conducted her up a short flight of steps, and
approached the captain, raising my hat as I did so, and receiving from
him a sea-flourish of the tall hat he wore. He was buttoned up in a
cloth coat, and his cheeks rested in a pair of high, sharp-pointed
collars, starched to an iron hardness, so that his body and head moved
as one piece. His short legs arched outwards, and his feet were
encased in long boots, the toes of which were of the shape of a shovel.
He wore the familiar tall hat of the streets; it looked to be brushed
the wrong way, was bronze at the rims, and on the whole showed as