Then, however, her
world was a real world again!
Five months on a sailing-ship around the Cape--deep-laden, gunwales
awash in a beam--on Bay-of-Biscay "snorer," hove-to for a week off
Cape Agul--has, while the clumsy brigantine rolled the masts loose
in her, all but dismasted in a typhoon come astray from the China
Sea, fed on moldy bread, and even moldier pork, with a fretful child
to nurse, and an exacting mother to be pleased! Jane Emmett laughed
at it. Bill had been there before her, and had done more on his
way, and worse Bengal did not frighten her. Nor did the knowledge,
when she reached it, that Bill was very likely still some hundreds
of miles away. She, who had come five thousand miles as the crows
are said to fly and nine thousand by the map, could manage the odd
hundreds. And she could wait. She had waited six long years. What
was another month or two?
She had not even a notion where Bill was, beyond a vague one that
he belonged to another province. For when the Honorable East India
Company was muddling the affairs of India, the honors and emoluments
and privileges--such as they were!--were reserved for the benefit
of the commissioned ranks.
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