Then the last
roller was overcome, and there was nothing but the long heave of the
deep sea to contend against. Presently we arrived at the steamer, whose
side towered above us--an iron wall.
A shout came to me, pitching and lurching with the boat far below, "Come
on board at once." But to come on board was only to be done by watching
a chance as the boat rose on the top of a roller. Taking such a one, I
seized the side-ropes, swung a moment in mid-air, and the next was on
the streamer's clean white deck. Before me stood a tall man with black
hair and whiskers and dark piercing eyes, who asked me if I was the
agent for Flint Brothers. I answered that the agent was on shore, and
that I was his assistant. Whereupon he informed me that he had been
appointed by the firm to liquidate all their stations and businesses on
the coast, and "he would be obliged by my getting his luggage into the
boat." This was said in a peremptory sort of way, as if he had spoken to
a servant; and very much against the grain I obeyed his orders.
That the man was new to the coast was evident, and my consolation was
that he would be very soon sick of it and pretty well frightened before
he even got on shore, for the weather was freshening rapidly, a fact
of which he appeared to take no heed.
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