more the remaining ship, the _Johanna_, followed, with Grandsteiner as
supercargo, and seven hundred emigrants. Here were the Müllers and most of
their relatives and fellow-villagers. Frank Schuber was among them, and
was chosen steward for the whole shipful.

At last they were all off. But instead of a summer's they were now to
encounter a winter's sea, and to meet it weakened and wasted by sickness
and destitution. The first company had been out but a week when, on New
Year's night, a furious storm burst upon the crowded ship. With hatches
battened down over their heads they heard and felt the great buffetings of
the tempest, and by and by one great crash above all other noises as the
mainmast went by the board. The ship survived; but when the storm was over
and the people swarmed up once more into the pure ocean atmosphere and saw
the western sun set clear, it set astern of the ship. Her captain had put
her about and was steering for Amsterdam.

"She is too old," the travelers gave him credit for saying, when long
afterwards they testified in court; "too old, too crowded, too short of
provisions, and too crippled, to go on such a voyage; I don't want to lose
my soul that way." And he took them back.

They sailed again; but whether in another ship, or in the same with
another captain, I have not discovered. Their sufferings were terrible.
The vessel was foul. Fevers broke out among them. Provisions became
scarce. There was nothing fit for the sick, who daily grew more numerous.
Storms tossed them hither and yon. Water became so scarce that the sick
died for want of it.

One of the Thomas children, a little girl of eight years, whose father lay
burning with fever and moaning for water, found down in the dark at the