The Argosy — page 150: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

138 A Day at Malta. hands—the lesser degree predominating ; whilst in a corridor im- mediately below us, another piano was employed all the morning by one of the two young ladies given to flirting, who spent hours in struggling through Dorothy and the Mikado. Her voice was quite impossibly out of time and tune. Even our poor cabin-steward grew pale and thin under the daily torture. ‘All day long, sir, and every day,” he said to me one morning, with a sigh and a voice that would have drawn tears from a stone. Her devoted cavalier of course turned the pages for her; but even his devotion cooled at last, when the fair prima donna suddenly found that her voice had been over- strained and needed repose. But by far the pleasantest thing of all was to lie on deck in a long chair, with a favourite book, and pass the hours in that dreamy, lotus- eating existence, which, at certain times and under certain conditions, is such intense pleasure. It was sufficient only to watch the sky and the water; the intense blue; the flashing gleams as the ripples caught the sunlight ; the birds that crossed our path ; the horizon only now and then broken by some vessel speeding on her way. Occasionally, especially at night, a mist would gather and blot out everything: the mist that so often creeps over the waters of the Mediterranean, though, fortunately, so quickly passes. As the moon waxed larger, the nights became more splendid, more full of a “divine effulgence.” The piano was brought on deck, and under the blaze of the electric light, dancing would commence. But somehow, it was never carried on with enthusiasm. Perhaps the electric light was not favourable to flirting and the utterances of those sentimental nothings which lose all their charm under any light but that of the moon ; and at the end of half-an-hour or so, the strains of Faust and the melodies of Waldteufel would languish and finally die away in silence. Our own evenings were spent with the judge and his daughter, who initiated us into the mysteries of Euchre, an Australian game we had heard much of but never, until now, seen played. The right bower, the left bower, the little joker soon ceased to be mere curious terms : and under the influence of this mild dissipation (we played for love, not money) the hour of 10.30 would often surprise us with unpleasant emotion. For at 10.30 the electric lights of the saloon were extinguished with a military precision which reflected great credit upon the staff of the vessel, but was not so agreeable to anyone else concerned. If you forgot the time and the light went out, you had to grope your way to your cabin as best you could. Often at 10.29 a flying figure and a fluttering of petticoats passed through the saloon, like Cinderella at the witching hour, as if it feared ghosts in the approaching darkness, or a return to rags and pumpkins, Once in your cabin light again shone upon you ; half-an-hour’s grace was allowed here, and darkness only fell at eleven. ECOMiCcOOolkKS —_— (CO