Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/396

362 I turned into the nearest shelter, a small inn opposite the boats, so as to be able to start at daylight; and the result justified my foresight. The captain of the first vessel, by which I had intended to go, went out. After shipping awful seas, and being frightfully knocked about, he moored some way off Calais Pier; but the sea and the wind drove the boat right on to it, and carried away one of the paddles, the tiller, and hurt several passengers. The waves drove her backwards and forwards on to the pier like a nutshell for half an hour, and she was nearly going down, but some smacks hauled her off and out to sea again. She beat about all night, and returned to Dover in a pitiable plight, having neither landed the passengers nor the baggage.

It was thus I met her when I embarked on the other boat at nine o'clock the next morning. The weather was terribly rough even then, but at least we had the advantage of daylight. We had a rough passage, the sea mountains high; but we reached Calais eventually, where I managed to get some food at the buffet, such as it was, but I had to sit on the floor with a plate on my lap, so great and rude was the crowd. The boat accident caused me to miss my proper train to Marseilles, and to lose two of my many trunks. It would almost seem as if some malignant spirit had picked these two trunks out, for the one contained nearly all my money, and the other all my little comforts for the journey. I had to decide at once between missing my passage at Marseilles and forsaking my missing trunks. I decided to go on, and leave them to look after themselves. Six months later they