"'You are right, my daughter,' he returned with emotion. 'But oh, God grant I may not be called to see my wife and children suffer and die for lack of food!'
"A young man standing near, one with whom they were slightly acquainted, here joined in the conversation.
"'It is dreadful, dreadful!' he exclaimed, but speaking in a subdued tone for fear of being overheard by their inhuman oppressors, 'the way these mercenary wretches are robbing the helpless poor whom they have entrapped into their net. Every fellow of them deserves the headsman's axe, and I hope will reach it at last. Think of the exorbitant sums they are asking for the barest necessaries of life! Nor do I believe they will ever carry us to our destination, lest complaint be made of them and they be brought to condign punishment by the authorities of the land.'
"'But, what then do you think they will do, Herr Ernesti?' asked Frau Follen, gasping with fear and horror, as she spoke.
"'I cannot tell,' he answered. 'Mayhap land us on some desert island, and leave us there to struggle as we can for life. But, thank God, they cannot take us to any spot where He does not rule and reign, or where His ear will be deaf to the cries of His perishing ones. So, my friends, let us not give up to utter despair. "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"'
"'Yes, yes; what consolation in knowing that!' cried Gretchen, tears of mingled joy and sorrow streaming down her face. 'Father, mother, sister, and brother, we are all His and He will care for us in His own time and way.'
"But who shall describe the scenes that followed through weeks of deepest distress and agony, as fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters saw their dear ones perishing with famine, while they themselves were goaded almost to madness by the pangs of hunger added to their bitter grief?
"But they were entirely in the power of their inhuman torturers, who never relaxed in their demands until they had wrenched from their wretched victims every stiver in their possession.
"That accomplished, and no food remaining--unless a very, very scanty store--they, officers and sailors, deserted the vessel, going off in the boats, leaving their helpless victims to their fate, for not one of them had either the needed knowledge or strength for the management of the ship; and so she drifted aimlessly hither and thither at the mercy of the winds and waves, carrying her fearful cargo of dead and dying whither they knew not.