As I am going to pa.s.s the night on deck, I return up the cabin stairs.
The American is there, just finishing the repacking of his case.
"Would you believe it!" he exclaims, "that that drunken moujik actually asked me for something to drink?"
"I hope you have lost nothing, Monsieur Ephrinell?" I reply.
"No; fortunately."
"May I ask how many teeth you are importing into China in those cases?"
"Eighteen hundred thousand, without counting the wisdom teeth!"
And Ephrinell began to laugh at this little joke, which he fired off on several other occasions during the voyage. I left him and went onto the bridge between the paddle boxes.
It is a beautiful night, with the northerly wind beginning to freshen.
In the offing, long, greenish streaks are sweeping over the surface of the sea. It is possible that the night may be rougher than we expect.
In the forepart of the steamer are many pa.s.sengers, Turkomans in rags, Kirghizes wrapped up to the eyes, moujiks in emigrant costume--poor fellows, in fact, stretched on the spare spars, against the sides, and along the tarpaulins. They are almost all smoking or nibbling at the provisions they have brought for the voyage. The others are trying to sleep and forget their fatigue, and perhaps their hunger.
It occurs to me to take a stroll among these groups. I am like a hunter beating the brushwood before getting into the hiding place. And I go among this heap of packages, looking them over as if I were a custom house officer.
A rather large deal case, covered with a tarpaulin, attracts my attention. It measures about a yard and a half in height, and a yard in width and depth. It has been placed here with the care required by these words in Russian, written on the side, "Gla.s.s--Fragile--Keep from damp," and then directions, "Top--Bottom," which have been respected.
And then there is the address, "Mademoiselle Zinca Klork, Avenue Cha-Coua, Pekin, Petchili, China."
This Zinca Klork--her name showed it--ought to be a Roumanian, and she was taking advantage of this through train on the Grand Transasiatic to get her gla.s.s forwarded. Was this an article in request at the shops of the Middle Kingdom? How otherwise could the fair Celestials admire their almond eyes and their elaborate hair?
The bell rang and announced the six-o"clock dinner. The dining-room is forward. I went down to it, and found it already occupied by some forty people.
Ephrinell had installed himself nearly in the middle. There was a vacant seat near him; he beckoned to me to occupy it, and I hastened to take possession.
Was it by chance? I know not; but the Englishwoman was seated on Ephrinell"s left and talking to him. He introduced me.
"Miss Horatia Bluett," he said.
Opposite I saw the French couple conscientiously studying the bill of fare.
At the other end of the table, close to where the food came from--and where the people got served first--was the German pa.s.senger, a man strongly built and with a ruddy face, fair hair, reddish beard, clumsy hands, and a very long nose which reminded one of the proboscidean feature of the plantigrades. He had that peculiar look of the officers of the Landsturm threatened with premature obesity.
"He is not late this time," said I to Ephrinell.
"The dinner hour is never forgotten in the German Empire!" replied the American.
"Do you know that German"s name?"
"Baron Weissschnitzerdorfer."
"And with that name is he going to Pekin?"
"To Pekin, like that Russian major who is sitting near the captain of the _Astara_."
I looked at the man indicated. He was about fifty years of age, of true Muscovite type, beard and hair turning gray, face prepossessing. I knew Russian: he ought to know French. Perhaps he was the fellow traveler of whom I had dreamed.
"You said he was a major, Mr. Ephrinell?"
"Yes, a doctor in the Russian army, and they call him Major Nolt.i.tz."
Evidently the American was some distance ahead of me, and yet he was not a reporter by profession.
As the rolling was not yet very great, we could dine in comfort.
Ephrinell chatted with Miss Horatia Bluett, and I understood that there was an understanding between these two perfectly Anglo-Saxon natures.
In fact, one was a traveler in teeth and the other was a traveler in hair. Miss Horatia Bluett represented an important firm in London, Messrs. Holmes-Holme, to whom the Celestial Empire annually exports two millions of female heads of hair. She was going to Pekin on account of the said firm, to open an office as a center for the collection of the Chinese hair crop. It seemed a promising enterprise, as the secret society of the Blue Lotus was agitating for the abolition of the pigtail, which is the emblem of the servitude of the Chinese to the Manchu Tartars. "Come," thought I, "if China sends her hair to England, America sends her teeth: that is a capital exchange, and everything is for the best."
We had been at the table for a quarter of an hour, and nothing had happened. The traveler with the smooth complexion and his blonde companion seemed to listen to us when we spoke in French. It evidently pleased them, and they were already showing an inclination to join in our talk. I was not mistaken, then; they are compatriots, but of what cla.s.s?
At this moment the _Astara_ gave a lurch. The plates rattled on the table; the covers slipped; the gla.s.ses upset some of their contents; the hanging lamps swung out of the vertical--or rather our seats and the table moved in accordance with the roll of the ship. It is a curious effect, when one is sailor enough to bear it without alarm.
"Eh!" said the American; "here is the good old Caspian shaking her skin."
"Are you subject to seasickness?" I asked.
"No more than a porpoise," said he. "Are you ever seasick?" he continued to his neighbor.
"Never," said Miss Horatia Bluett.
On the other side of the table there was an interchange of a few words in French.
"You are not unwell, Madame Caterna?"
"No, Adolphe, not yet; but if this continues, I am afraid--"
"Well, Caroline, we had better go on deck. The wind has hauled a point to the eastward, and the _Astara_ will soon be sticking her nose in the feathers."
His way of expressing himself shows that "Monsieur Caterna"--if that was his name--was a sailor, or ought to have been one. That explains the way he rolls his hips as he walks.
The pitching now becomes very violent. The majority of the company cannot stand it. About thirty of the pa.s.sengers have left the table for the deck. I hope the fresh air will do them good. We are now only a dozen in the dining room, including the captain, with whom Major Nolt.i.tz is quietly conversing. Ephrinell and Miss Bluett seem to be thoroughly accustomed to these inevitable incidents of navigation. The German baron drinks and eats as if he had taken up his quarters in some bier-halle at Munich, or Frankfort, holding his knife in his right hand, his fork in his left, and making up little heaps of meat, which he salts and peppers and covers with sauce, and then inserts under his hairy lip on the point of his knife. Fie! What behavior! And yet he gets on splendidly, and neither rolling nor pitching makes him lose a mouthful of food or drink.
A little way off are the two Celestials, whom I watch with curiosity.
One is a young man of distinguished bearing, about twenty-five years old, of pleasant physiognomy, in spite of his yellow skin and his narrow eyes. A few years spent in Europe have evidently Europeanized his manners and even his dress. His mustache is silky, his eye is intelligent his hair is much more French than Chinese. He seems to me a nice fellow, of a cheerful temperament, who would not ascend the "Tower of Regret," as the Chinese have it, oftener than he could help.
His companion, on the contrary, whom he always appears to be making fun of, is of the type of the true porcelain doll, with the moving head; he is from fifty to fifty-five years old, like a monkey in the face, the top of his head half shaven, the pigtail down his back, the traditional costume, frock, vest, belt, baggy trousers, many-colored slippers; a China vase of the Green family. He, however, could hold out no longer, and after a tremendous pitch, accompanied by a long rattle of the crockery, he got up and hurried on deck. And as he did so, the younger Chinaman shouted after him, "Cornaro! Cornaro!" at the same time holding out a little volume he had left on the table.
What was the meaning of this Italian word in an Oriental mouth? Did the Chinaman speak the language of Boccaccio? The _Twentieth Century_ ought to know, and it would know.
Madame Caterna arose, very pale, and Monsieur Caterna, a model husband, followed her on deck.
The dinner over, leaving Ephrinell and Miss Bluett to talk of brokerages and prices current, I went for a stroll on the p.o.o.p of the _Astara_. Night had nearly closed in. The hurrying clouds, driven from the eastward, draped in deep folds the higher zones of the sky, with here and there a few stars peeping through. The wind was rising. The white light of the steamer clicked as it swung on the foremast. The red and green lights rolled with the ship, and projected their long colored rays onto the troubled waters.