Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/32

12 the vessel out of the Mersey had been on board since the evening before. I saw also a French Pilot, who was to make the passage with us, and on her return to take the steamship into anchorage at Brest.

"I begin to think we shall sail to-day," said I to Lieutenant H.

"We are only waiting for our passengers," replied my countryman.

"Are there many?"

"Twelve or thirteen hundred."

At half-past eleven the tender was hailed, laden with passengers, who, as I afterwards learnt, were Californians, Canadians, Americans, Peruvians, English, Germans, and two or three Frenchmen. The tender ranged herself at the foot of a flight of steps, and then began the slow, interminable ascent of passengers and luggage.

The first care of each passenger, when he had once set foot on the steamer, was to go and secure his place in the dining-room; his card, or his name written on a scrap of paper, was enough to insure his possession.

I remained on deck in order to notice all the details of embarkation. At half-past twelve the luggage was all on board, and I saw thousands of packages of every description, from chests large enough to contain a suite of furniture, to elegant little traveling-cases and fanciful American and English trunks, heaped together pell-mell. All these were soon cleared from the deck, and stowed away in the store-rooms; workmen and porters returned to the tender, which steered off, after having blackened the side of the Great Eastern with her smoke.

I was going back towards the bows, when suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man I had seen on Prince's Landing-Stage. He stopped on seeing me, and held out his hand, which I warmly shook.

"You, Fabian!" I cried. "You here?"

"Even so, my dear friend."

"I was not mistaken, then; it was really you I saw on the quay a day or two since."

"It is likely," replied Fabian, "but I did not see you."

"And you are going to America?"

"Certainly! Do you think I could spend a month's leave better than in traveling?"