"What does this mean? Why are we put here on board these white ships? What are they going to do with us?"

"Alas, ladies," he said, "they have put you here to die; they have bored holes in the ships' bottoms, and in a few minutes they will sink. It is a wholesale execution.

As he began to speak one of the ladies in the stern pushed her way through the rest.

"Oh, Harry, is it you!" she exclaimed as he finished. "Is it true, are we to die together?"

"We are in God's hands, Jeanne, but there is hope yet. Bring Virginie forward with me."

At Harry's first words a panic had seized all around; one or two ran to the hatchway and looked down into the hold, and screamed out that the water was rushing in; then some cried to the distant crowd to send to save them; others ran up and down as if demented; while some threw themselves on their knees. But the panic soon passed away; all had for weeks looked death in the face, and though the unexpected form in which it appeared had for the moment shaken them, they soon recovered. Mothers clasped their daughters to their breasts for a last farewell, and then all with bowed heads kneeled and listened in silence to an old man who began to pray aloud.