Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/607

Rh dead to-day. There would be a little more ceremony over me, and (not of course including my husband) my death would cast a gloom over the dinner-table possibly a couple of days. Once we were shunted down the ship's side, the sharks would eat us both, and perhaps like me a little the better, as I am fat and well fed, and do not smell of cocoa-nut oil; and then we would both stand before the throne of God to be judged—he with his poverty, hardships, sufferings, pilgrimage, and harmless life, and I with all my faults, my happy life, my luxuries, and the little wee bit of good I have ever done or ever thought, to obtain mercy with; only equal that our Saviour died for us both."

I can hardly express what I suffered during that fortnight's voyage on board the pilgrim-ship. It was an experience which I would never repeat again. Imagine eight hundred Moslems, ranging in point of colour through every shade from lemon or café au lait to black as ebony; races from every part of the world, covering every square inch of deck, and every part of the hold fore and aft, packed like sardines, men, women, and babies, reeking of cocoa-nut oil. It was a voyage of horror. I shall never forget their unwashed bodies, their sea-sickness, their sores, the dead and the dying, their rags, and last, but not least, their cookery. Except to cook or fetch water or kneel in prayer, none of them moved out of the small space or position which they assumed at the beginning of the voyage. Those who died did not die of disease so much as of privation and fatigue, hunger, thirst, and opium. They died of vermin and misery. I shall never forget the