wondering how a man could be such a fool; but at length he put us
out of suspense and divulged the fact that C and P stood for
Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate.

I think it must have been the riddle that settled us; but the
motion and the close air likewise hurried our departure. We had
not been gone long, we heard next morning, ere two or even three
out of the five fell sick. We thought it little wonder on the
whole, for the sea kept contrary all night. I now made my bed upon
the second cabin floor, where, although I ran the risk of being
stepped upon, I had a free current of air, more or less vitiated
indeed, and running only from steerage to steerage, but at least
not stagnant; and from this couch, as well as the usual sounds of a
rough night at sea, the hateful coughing and retching of the sick
and the sobs of children, I heard a man run wild with terror
beseeching his friend for encouragement. 'The ship 's going down!'
he cried with a thrill of agony. 'The ship's going down!' he
repeated, now in a blank whisper, now with his voice rising towards
a sob; and his friend might reassure him, reason with him, joke at
him--all was in vain, and the old cry came back, 'The ship's going
down!' There was something panicky and catching in the emotion of
his tones; and I saw in a clear flash what an involved and hideous
tragedy was a disaster to an emigrant ship. If this whole
parishful of people came no more to land, into how many houses
would the newspaper carry woe, and what a great part of the web of
our corporate human life would be rent across for ever!

The next morning when I came on deck I found a new world indeed.
The wind was fair; the sun mounted into a cloudless heaven; through
great dark blue seas the ship cut a swath of curded foam. The