It was not till then that I found out their names. I told them mine. They looked at one another in astonishment. “Langhetti?” said the mother.
“Yes.”
“Did you ever live in Holby?”
“Yes. My father was organist in Trinity Church, and I and my sister lived there some years. She lives there still.”
“My God!” was her ejaculation.
“Why?” I asked, with eager curiosity. “What do you know about Holby, and about Langhetti?”
She looked at me with solemn earnestness. “I,” said she, “am the wife, and these are the children of one who was your father’s friend. He who was my husband, and the father of these children, was Ralph Brandon, of Brandon Hall.”
I stood for a moment stupefied. Then I burst into tears. Then I embraced them all, and said I know not what of pity and sympathy and affection. My God! to think of such a fate as this awaiting the family of Ralph Brandon. Did you know this, oh, Teresina? If so, why did you keep it secret? But no—you could not have known it. If you had this would not have happened.
They took my room in the cabin—the dear ones—Mrs. Brandon and the sweet Edith. The son Frank and I stay together among the emigrants. Here I am now, and I write this as the sun is getting low, and the uproar of all these hundreds is sounding in my ears.
June 30.—There is a panic in the ship. The dread pestilence known as “ship-fever” has appeared. This disease is the terror of emigrant ships. Surely there was never any vessel so well adapted to be the prey of the pestilence as this of ours! I have lived for ten days among the steerage passengers, and have witnessed their misery. Is God just? Can he look down unmoved upon scenes like these? Now that the disease has come, where will it stop?