It proved to be rather difficult to manage it; for both the steamer and the boat were rocking and tossing violently on the waves, and as their respective motions did not at all correspond, they thumped against each other continually, as the boat rose and fell up and down the side of the steamer in a fearful manner. It was dark too, and the wind was blowing fresh, which added to the frightfulness of the scene.
A crowd of people stood about the gangway. Some of these people were passengers waiting to go down, and others, officers of the ship, to help them. The seamen in the boat below were all on the alert too, some employed in keeping the boat off from the side of the ship, in order to prevent her being stove or swamped, while others stood on each side of the place where the passengers were to descend, with uplifted arms, ready to seize and hold them when they came down.
There was a little flight of steps hanging down the side of the steamer, with ropes on each side of it in lieu of a balustrade. The passenger who was to embark was directed to turn round and begin to go down these steps backward, and then, when the sea lifted the boat so that the seamen on board could seize hold of him, they all cried out vociferously, "LET GO!" and at the same moment a strong sailor grasped him around the waist, brought him down into the bottom of the boat in a very safe, though extremely unceremonious manner.
After several gentlemen and one lady had thus been put into the boat, amid a great deal of calling and shouting, and many exclamations of surprise and terror, the officer at the gangway turned to Mr. George, saying,--
There was no time to stop to talk; so Mr. George stepped forward, saying to Rollo as he went, "Come right on directly after me;" and in a moment more he was seized by the man, and whirled down into the boat, he scarcely knew how. Immediately after he was in, there came some unusually heavy seas, and the steamer and the boat thumped together so violently that all the efforts of the seamen seemed to be required to keep them apart.
"Here, stop! I want to go first," exclaimed Rollo.
"No more in this boat," said the officer. "Push off!"
"Never mind," said Rollo, calling out to Mr. George, "I'll come by and by."