Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/41

Rh ranged within two cable-lengths of a vessel which she had overhauled. It was the Propontis, on her way to New York, which was saluting the giant of the seas on her passage, which compliment the giant returned.

Land was still in sight at four o'clock, but hardly discernible through the mist which had suddenly surrounded us. Soon we saw the light of Fastenet Beacon, situated on an isolated rock. Night set in, during which we must have doubled Cape Clear, the most southerly point of Ireland.

Wednesday night the weather was very bad, my balance was strangely variable, and I was obliged to lean with my knees and elbows against the sideboard, to prevent myself from falling. Portmanteaus and bags came in and out of my cabin; an unusual hubbub reigned in the adjoining saloon, in which two or three hundred packages were making expeditions from one end to the other, knocking the tables and chairs with loud crashes; doors slammed, the boards creaked, the partitions made that groaning noise peculiar to pine wood; bottles and glasses jingled together in their racks, and a cataract of plates and dishes rolled about on the pantry floors. I heard the irregular roaring of the screw, and the wheels beating the water, sometimes entirely immersed, and at others striking the empty air; by all these signs I concluded that the wind had freshened, and the steamship was no longer indifferent to the billows.

At six o'clock next morning, after passing a sleepless night, I got up and dressed myself, as well as I could with one hand, while with the other I clutched at the sides of my cabin, for without support it was impossible to keep one's feet, and I had quite a serious struggle to get on my overcoat I left my cabin, and helping myself with hands and feet through the billows of luggage, I crossed the saloon, scrambling up the stairs on my knees, like a Roman peasant devoutly climbing the steps of the "Scala santa" of Pontius Pilate; and at last, reaching the deck, I hung on firmly to the nearest support.

No land in sight; we had doubled Cape Clear in the night,