“Do you know the name of the ship?”
“The Tecumseh.”
“The Tecumseh!” exclaimed the clerk, with a startled look. “That is an awful name in our records. I am sorry you have not another name to examine, for the Tecumseh was the worst of all.”
Brandon bowed.
“The Tecumseh,” continued the clerk, turning over the leaves of the book as it lay on the desk. “The Tecumseh, from Liverpool, sailed June 2, arrived August 16. Here you see the names of those who died at sea, copied from the ship’s books, and those who died on shore. It is a frightful mortality. Would you like to look over the list?”
Brandon bowed and advanced to the desk.
“The deaths on board ship show whether they were seamen or passengers, and the passengers are marked as cabin and steerage. But after landing it was impossible to keep an account of classes.”
Brandon carefully ran his eye down the long list, and read each name. Those for which he looked did not appear. At last he came to the list of those who had died on shore. After reading a few names his eye was arrested by one—
“Brandon, Elizabeth.”
It was his mother. He read on. He soon came to another—