Liz and Nellie

by Shonna Slayton

  30

  In Which Nellie Bly Shuns A Suitor And Fears For Her Life

  THAT EVENING WE sailed for Hong Kong. The next day the sea was rough, and head winds made the run slower than we had hoped for. Towards noon almost all the passengers disappeared. Although feeling faint, I never did succumb to seasickness. However, as the roughness increased; the cook enjoyed a holiday.

  The terrible swell of the sea during the Monsoon was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I sat breathless on deck watching the bow of the ship standing upright on a wave then dash headlong down as if intending to carry us to the bottom.

  “Did you know Maury is quite seasick?” asked an Englishman who had gained too much amusement from watching the man who had become my shadow.

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” I answered generously, though could not hide my smile.

  My audience laughed. But before we could change the topic of conversation, the man himself walked unsteadily toward us, his rugs slung over his arm and his hand clutching his stomach.

  There were no empty chairs near me, and instead of moving on to find one, he quietly curled up on his rugs at my feet. There he lay in all his misery, gazing at me.

  “You would not think that I am enjoying a vacation, but I am,” he said plaintively.

  I felt very cruel looking into his pale face and hearing him plead for sympathy. But as heartless as I thought it was, I could not sympathize with a seasick man.

  “You don't know how nice I can look,” he said pathetically. “If you would only stay over at Hong Kong for a week, you would see how handsome I can look.”

  “Indeed, such a phenomenon might induce me to remain there six weeks,” I said coldly.

  At last, the Irish boy Sean Collins told him I was engaged to the chief officer, named Sleeman, who did not approve of my talking to other men, thinking this would make him cease following me about, but it only served to increase his devotion. Finding me alone on deck one stormy evening, he sat down at my feet and, holding to the arms of my chair, began to talk in a wild way.

  “Do you think life is worth living?” he asked.

  “Yes, life is very sweet. The thought of death is the only thing that causes me unhappiness,” I answered truthfully.

  “You cannot understand it or you would feel different. I could take you in my arms and jump overboard, and before they would know it, we would be at rest,” he said passionately.

  “You can't tell. It might not be rest–” I began, and he broke in hotly.

  “I know, I know. I can show you. I will prove it to you. Death by drowning is a peaceful slumber, a quiet drifting away.”

  “Is it?” I said, with a pretense of eagerness. I feared to get up, for I felt the first move might result in my burial beneath the angry sea. “You know, tell me about it. Explain it to me,” I gasped, a feeling of coldness creeping over me as I realized that I was alone with what for the time was a mad man.

  Just as he began to speak, I saw Chief Officer Sleeman come on deck and slowly advance towards me. I dared not call. I dared not smile, lest the mad man should notice.

  I feared the chief would go away, but no, he saw me, and with a desire to tease the man who had been so devoted, he came up on tiptoe, then, clapping the poor fellow on the back, he said: “What a very pretty love scene!”

  “Come,” I shouted, breaking away before the startled man could understand.

  The chief, still in a spirit of fun, took my hand, and we rushed down below. Once we were safely away, I explained. “He wanted to jump overboard with me! If you hadn’t have come, I would have been swimming for my life right now.”

  “Miss Bly, how terrible. Look, there is the captain. He’ll take control of the devil.”

  We told him, and the captain wanted to put the man in irons.

  “No, I don’t think he is that dangerous,” I argued. Now that I was safe, it didn’t seem as plausible that he truly meant me harm. “It was just a passing melancholy moment. He has been feeling seasick.”

  They reluctantly backed down, and I was careful afterwards not to spend one moment alone and unprotected on deck.

  The monkey proved a good seaman. He was especially popular with the young men on board. One day when I visited it, I found a group who had been toasting its health. (It is wonderful the amount of whiskey and soda Englishmen consume. They drink it at all times and places.)

  “We’ve decided to call him Jocko,” said one of the men.

  I started over to the monkey to ask if he liked his name. “Why is he holding his head so?” I asked. Then I noticed the empty cup in front of him. Evidently thinking I was the cause of his aching head, it sprang at me, and I ran out of the room. I vowed then to not have a Jocko for a monkey!

  THE HURRICANE DECK was a great resort for lovers, so Chief Officer Sleeman told me; and evidently he knew, for he talked a great deal about two American girls who had traveled to Egypt, I believe, on the Thames when he was first officer of it. He had lost their address but his heart was true, for he had lost a philopoena to one, and though he did not know her address, he bought the philopoena and put it in a bank in London where it awaits some farther knowledge of the fair young American's whereabouts.

  “What is a philopoena?” asked a quiet gentleman, who was listening to us instead of reading his book.

  “A game of wits,” I explained. “It begins when someone finds a double nut and gives it to another, asking ‘Will you eat a philopoena with me?’ If you accept and eat, the game begins. The next time you meet, whoever remembers and says the word philopoena wins and may suggest a gift that the other is to give them.”

  Chief Officer Sleeman nodded. “Yes, but you can’t come out and say exactly what the prize is; you must hint and the other figure it out.”

  The curious gentleman shook his head as if baffled. “Young people,” he said, and went back to pretending to read.

  The next night, we went to bed under threat of a monsoon storm. Not long after falling asleep, I awoke with a fright. The ship pitched dangerously, and water sloshed around my cabin. The angry sea had washed over the ship!

  I started to climb down from my dry berth, but escape to the lower deck was impossible, as I could not tell the deck from the sea. What was I to do?

  As I crawled back into my bunk, I thought it very possible I had spoken my last word to any mortal, that the ship would doubtless sink, and with it all, if the ship did go down, no one would be able to tell whether I could have gone around the world in seventy-five days or not.

  I lay awake for hours, gripping my berth and straining my ears to listen for any alarms that might go off, calling us to the lifeboats. But could a lifeboat survive this storm? Wouldn’t it be better to stay on board?

  Eventually, I decided that all the worry in the world cannot change it one way or the other, so I went to sleep and slumbered soundly until the breakfast hour.

  The ship was making its way laboriously through a very frisky sea when I looked out, but the deck was drained, even if it was not dry.

  When I went out, Sean Collins, for whom I had developed great fondness, was stretched out languidly in a willow chair with a bottle of champagne on one armrest and a glass on the other.

  “I swear, Nellie Bly, when I get to Hong Kong I’ll stay there until I can return to England by land.” The ship rolled with a wave, and he took a drink. “You should have seen my cabin mate last night,” he said with a laugh.

  The man he spoke of, a very clever Englishman, was the man who posed as a woman-hater, and naturally we enjoyed any joke at his expense. “Why? What did he do?”

  “Finding our cabin filling with water, he got out of bed, put on a life preserver and bailed out the cabin with a cigarette box!”

  I laughed until my sides ached at the mental picture presented to me of the little chunky Englishman in an enormous life preserver, bailing out his cabin with a tiny cigarette box. Even the box of the deadly cigarette seems to have its Christian mission to perform.

&nb
sp; While I was wiping away the tears, the Englishman came up.

  “What is so funny?” he asked.

  After hearing what had amused us, he revealed: “While I was bailing out the cabin, The Boy here clung to the upper berth all the time groaning and praying. He was certain the ship would sink, and I could not persuade him to get out of the top berth to help bail. Nothing but groan and pray.”

  Sean answered with a laugh, “I did not want to sleep the rest of the night in wet pajamas.”

  Not equally amused, the Englishman fled.

  Later in the day, the rolling was frightful. I was sitting on deck when all at once the ship went down at one side like a wagon in a deep rut. I was thrown in my chair clear across the deck.

  A young man jumped up to catch me just as the ship went the other way in a still deeper sea-rut. It flung me back again, and I caught hold of an iron bar and clung on tight. In another moment, I would have been dashed through the skylight into the dining hall on the deck below.

  As I caught the bar, the man who had rushed to my assistance turned upside down and landed on his face. I laughed as his position was so ludicrous.

  He made no move to get up, so I ran to his side, still convulsed with laughter. His nose was bleeding profusely, but I was such an idiot that the sight of the blood only made the scene to me the more ridiculous.

  After helping him to a chair, I ran for the doctor and from laughing could hardly tell him what I wanted. The man's nose was broken, and the doctor said he would be scarred for life.

  Later at dinner, even the others laughed when I described the accident, and, although I felt a great pity for the poor fellow, hurt as he was on my behalf, still an irresistible impulse to laugh swept over me every time I endeavored to express my appreciation of his attempt to assist me.

  THE EVENING OF December 22, we all felt an eagerness for morning and yet the eagerness was mingled with much that was sad. Knowing that early in the day we would reach Hong Kong, and while it would bring us new scenes and new acquaintances, it would take us from old friends.

  “Everything is such an improvement on the Victoria,” I said, reminiscing at dinner. “The food is good, the passengers are refined, the officers are polite, and the ship is comfortable and pleasant.”

  When I finished my complimentary remarks about the ship, a little bride who had been a source of interest to us looked up and said:

  “Yes, everything is very nice, but the life preservers are not quite comfortable to sleep in.”

  Shocked amazement spread over the countenances of all the passengers, and then in one grand shout that dining room resounded with laughter.

  “What is so funny?” she asked. “Ever since we left home on our bridal tour, we have been sleeping in the life preservers. Isn’t that the thing to do on board a ship?”

  31

  In Which Nellie Bly Finds Out She Is Not Alone In The Race

  WE FIRST SAW the city of Hong Kong in the early morning. Gleaming white were the castle-like homes on the tall mountain side. A beautiful bay was this magnificent basin, walled on every side by high mountains. We fired a cannon as we entered the bay, the captain saying that this was the custom of mail ships.

  Hong Kong is strangely picturesque. It is a terraced city, the terraces being formed by the castle-like, arcaded buildings perched tier after tier up the mountain's verdant side. The regularity with which the houses are built in rows made me wildly fancy them a gigantic staircase.

  The doctor, another gentleman, and I left the boat, and, walking to the pier's end, selected sedan chairs in which we were carried to the town. The carriers were as urgent as our hackmen around railway stations in America.

  We followed the road along the shore, passing warehouses of many kinds and tall balconied buildings filled with hundreds of Chinese families, on the flat-house plan. The balconies would have lent a pleasing appearance to the houses had the inhabitants not seemed to be enjoying a washing jubilee, using the balconies for clotheslines. Garments were stretched on poles after the manner of hanging coats so they would not wrinkle, and those poles were fastened to the balconies until it looked as if every family in the street had placed their old clothing on exhibition.

  Our carriers trotted steadily, snorting at the crowds of natives we met to clear the way. A series of snorts or grunts would cause a scattering of natives more frightened than a tie-walker would be at the tooting of an engine's whistle.

  My only wish and desire was to get as speedily as possible to the office of the Oriental and Occidental Steamship Company to learn the earliest possible time I could leave for Japan, to continue my race against time around the world.

  I had just marked off my thirty-ninth day. Only thirty-nine days since leaving New York, and I was in China. I was particularly elated, because the good ship Oriental not only made up the five days I had lost in Colombo, but reached Hong Kong two days before I was due. And that with the northeast monsoon against her. It was the Oriental's maiden trip to China, and from Colombo to Hong Kong, she had broken all previous records.

  Entering the O. and O. office feeling very much elated over my good fortune, with never a doubt but that it would continue, I asked a man in the office, “Will you tell me the date of the first sailing for Japan?”

  “In one moment,” he said, and, going into an inner office, he brought out a man who looked at me inquiringly, and when I repeated my question, said:

  “What is your name?”

  “Nellie Bly,” I replied in some surprise.

  “Come in, come in,” he said nervously.

  We followed him in, and after we were seated, he said: “You are going to be beaten.”

  “What? I think not. I have made up my delay,” I said, still surprised, wondering if the Pacific had sunk since my departure from New York, or if all the ships on that line had been destroyed.

  “You are going to lose it,” he said with an air of conviction.

  “Lose it? I don't understand. What do you mean?” I demanded, beginning to think he was mad.

  “Aren't you having a race around the world?” he asked.

  “Yes, quite right. I am running a race with Time.”

  “Time? I don't think that's her name.”

  “Her! Her!!” I repeated. Poor fellow, he was quite unbalanced.

  “Yes, the other woman; she is going to win. She left here three days ago.”

  I stared at him; I turned to the doctor; I wondered if I was awake; I concluded the man was quite mad, so I forced myself to laugh in an unconcerned manner, but I was only able to say stupidly: “The other woman?” A queasy feeling not unlike seasickness passed through me as it dawned on me that he was in earnest.

  “Yes,” he continued briskly. “Did you not know? The day you left New York, another woman started out to beat your time, and she's going to do it. She left here three days ago. You probably met somewhere near the Straits of Malacca. She says she has authority to pay any amount to get ships to leave in advance of their time. Her editor offered one or two thousand dollars to the O. and O. if they would have the Oceanic leave San Francisco two days ahead of time.”

  “But that is an unfair advantage!” broke in the doctor, indignant on my behalf.

  “They would not do it, but they did do their best to get her here in time to catch the English mail for Ceylon. If they had not arrived long before they were due, she would have missed that boat, and so have been delayed ten days. But she caught the boat and left three days ago, and you, my dear, will be delayed here five days.”

  “That is rather hard, isn't it?” I said quietly, forcing a smile that was on the lips, but came from nowhere near the heart. Why didn’t anyone tell me?

  “I'm astonished you did not know anything about it,” he said. “She led us to suppose that it was an arranged race.”

  “I do not believe my editor would arrange a race without advising me,” I said stoutly. “Have you no cables or messages for me from New York?”

  “Nothing,” was
his reply.

  “Probably they do not know about her,” I said more cheerfully, though still with a strong sinking feeling. All the telegrams…news about the contest, but not a word about a competitor!

  “Yes, they do. She worked for the same newspaper you do until the day she started.”

  “I do not understand it,” I said quietly, too proud to show my ignorance on a subject of vital importance to my well-doing. Did they want me to look a fool? “You say I cannot leave here for five days?”

  “No, and I don't think you can get to New York in eighty days. She intends to do it in seventy. She has letters to steamship officials at every point, requesting them to do all they can to get her on. Have you any letters?”

  “Only one, from the agent of the P. and O., requesting the captains of their boats to be good to me because I am traveling alone. That is all,” I said with a little smile. I wished he would quit talking as though this other woman were mere minutes from setting foot back in New York.

  “Well, it's too bad, but I think you have lost it. There is no chance for you. You will lose five days here and five in Yokohoma, and you are sure to have a slow trip across at this season.”

  Just then a young man, with the softest black eyes and a clear pale complexion, came into the office. The agent, Mr. Harmon, introduced him to me as Mr. Fuhrmann, the purser of the Oceanic, the ship on which I would eventually travel to Japan and America. The young man took my hand in a firm, strong clasp, and his soft black eyes gave me such a look of sympathy that it only needed his kind tone to cheer me into a happier state.

  “I went down to the Oriental to meet you; Mr. Harmon thought it was better. We want to take good care of you now that you are in our charge, but, unfortunately, I missed you. I returned to the hotel, and as they knew nothing about you there, I came here, fearing that you were lost.”