CHAPTER XVI. LANDING AT SAN FRANCISCO.

On the following evening at sunset, the deck of the steamer presented a most impressive appearance. All the officers and passengers of the ship were assembled around the corpse of poor Nina Van der Beck, over which the captain was reading the burial service. The evening was gloomy and threatening, and the dark-green waves were beginning to be capped with foam. Overhead there was a glaring red sky, of the fierce, angry color of blood which tinged the water around the ship a lurid crimson. Away in the west the sun, like a gigantic ball of fire, was sinking behind a bank of ominous-looking clouds, and from time to time a passing shadow shivered on the troubled waters like a streak of purple. Several huge albatross were unceasingly circling around the vessel with broad expanded wings, and their discordant cries added to the weird fantasy of the scene. The engines had been stopped, and the silence was only broken by the slashing of the waves against the ship's side and the melancholy moaning of the wind through the rigging, which was so strong as to sometimes almost drown the voice of the commander as he proceeded with the service.

On the deck at his feet lay a long, narrow object, sewed up in a canvas cover. An Austrian flag had been thrown partly over it, so as to conceal as much as possible the rigid outline of the corpse which produced so dismal an impression in its shroud of sail-cloth, to which two heavy cannonballs had been attached.

Frederick was leaning against the bulwark, close to the [Pg 146] place where an opening had been purposely prepared. His arms were folded on his breast, and his head was bent; but, although he was deadly pale, he showed no trace of emotion, and remained so perfectly still that he might have been carved in marble. Only once during the brief ceremony did his unnatural calm give way. The captain had arrived at those most solemn words of a burial service at sea:

“We therefore commit her body to the deep, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead.”
NINA BURIED AT SEA.

Four quartermasters, with bared heads, at that moment seized the corpse, and, placing it on an inclined plank, allowed it to gently glide downward into the dark waters. The waves opened for an instant, with a low, hissing sound, and then closed again over all that remained of the once beautiful and admired Nina. Frederick shuddered, as if overcome by a great terror, and an expression of horror swept over his livid features. Making his way through the group of mourners, he rapidly walked forward to the very bows of the vessel, and for three long hours he remained there motionless, leaning against the bulwark, peering into the gathering darkness, and apparently heedless of the terrible storm which was coming on.

The tempest, which had announced itself by an alarming fall of the barometer, burst forth shortly after ten o'clock that night in all its intensity. It seemed as if the very elements were raising their voices in protest against the great crime which had been committed. For a time the wind was so powerful that the ship could make no headway, and the very waves were beaten down by its terrific force. The air for a depth of about fifteen feet above the surface of the water was covered with a dense kind of mist, formed of pulverized spray. It was impossible to stand on deck without being tied.

[Pg 147]

On the following day the wind lulled slightly, and then the waves, as if released from the pressure which had kept them down, burst upon the vessel in all their mad fury. Seas mountain high swept the deck from stem to stern, carrying almost all before them. The boats were torn from [Pg 148] their davits and shattered to pieces. The smoking-room, pilot-house, and captain's cabin were severely damaged, and the paddle-boxes splintered to match-wood, leaving the huge wheels exposed to view.

In the midst of all this turmoil, Frederick was below in the saloon, half-stretched on a divan, making an attempt to read. Suddenly a terrific lurch sent everything flying to starboard, and the young man, without touching the table in front of him, was hurled clean over it through the air to the other side of the cabin, where his head came in violent contact with the heavy brass lock of the door.

For a moment it was thought that he was dead. Some artery had been cut, and a torrent of blood deluged his face and clothes. As soon as his fellow-passengers were able to regain their feet, they carried him off to the surgeon's quarters, where some minutes elapsed before he could be restored to his senses.

Marvelous to relate, it was found that he had sustained no injury beyond a deep and jagged cut extending over the top of the head. This was carefully sewed up, and with the exception of severe headaches during the next few weeks, accompanied by slight fever, Frederick suffered no ill effects from his accident.

The wound, although it had healed well, yet left, even when the hair had grown again, a slight scar, which the French police might have discovered at the time of “Prado's” imprisonment and execution, had they taken the trouble to shave the front part of his head.

The storm had driven the steamer so far out of its course that it did not arrive in front of the Golden Gate until the twenty-ninth day after leaving Yokohama. A few hours later the good ship was made fast to the enormous wharf of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. Frederick hastened on shore, and was driven to one of the leading hotels.

In the afternoon, having gone down to see about the [Pg 149] passing of his luggage through the custom-house, he was much amused by the sight of the landing of the five or six hundred Chinese who had made the passage across the Pacific with him. If ever human beings were treated like chattels it was on this occasion. The inspectors first of all began by carefully examining the strange-looking bundles and boxes which constituted their baggage; and, having ascertained that there was no opium concealed therein, they marked them with a large hieroglyphic in white chalk, in order to show that they had been duly passed. The owners themselves were then taken in hand, and their persons equally minutely searched, after which ceremony their backs were ornamented with a similar large hieroglyphic in chalk. The spectacle they presented as they marched into San Francisco, labeled in this fashion, from the highest mandarin down to the humblest coolie, was ludicrous beyond description, and was greeted with many a hearty laugh.