Thus encouraged, Mrs. Embury began at once.
"Story of the ship Palatine," she read.
"Some time in the early years of the last century, a ship named the Palatine left Holland for America, bearing a large number of emigrants, whose destination was the then colony of Pennsylvania, where they intended to buy land and settle; and for that reason they were carrying with them all their earthly possessions—clothing, furniture, and money; of which some had a good deal, others only a little.
"Among the wealthier ones was Herr Adolphus Follen, with his wife Margaret, his daughters Katrina and Gretchen, and his son Karl. Also they had with them an elderly woman, Lisa Kuntz, who had lived with the Follens ever since their marriage, and acted as nurse to each of their children in turn. She had no near kin, and being much attached to the family in which she had made her home for so many years, had decided to accompany them to the new world in spite of her fears of Indians and wild animals.
"As the good ship Palatine sailed slowly out of port, all these, with many of their fellow-passengers, stood upon her deck gazing sadly, and not a few with flowing tears, upon the fast-receding shores of their native land. Ah, how much bitterer would have been their grief, could they have foreseen the sufferings that fateful voyage held in store for them! Though they little suspected it at the time, they had fallen into the hands of men so full of the love of money, so ready to do the most dastardly deeds in order to secure it, that they were no better than the worst of cut-throats and murderers.
"The emigrants had not brought a store of provisions for the voyage, because, according to the agreement, these were to be purchased of the captain and his officers. But scarcely had they cleared the coast and stood well out to sea when they were struck with astonishment and dismay at the enormous sums asked for the merest necessaries of life: 20 guilders for a cup of water, 50 rix dollars for a ship's biscuit."
"Astounding rascality!" exclaimed Mr. Embury, as his wife paused for an instant in her reading.
"Why, how much are those coins worth in our money?" she asked. "I really do not know exactly."
"A guilder," he replied, "equals 40 cents of our money; so that 20 guilders would be $8. Think of that as the price of a cup of water! probably not the coolest or cleanest either. Then the 50 rix dollars for a ship biscuit would equal $18.25. Think of such a conspiracy as that on the part of a ship's officers to rob defenceless passengers!"