Out on the sounding sea and in a thronging multitude--the salt spray anon dashing furiously up against the gunwale of the vessel--there moved a stately female figure, seemingly alone. It was the ill-fated subject of these memoirs. Her countenance wore an expression of resoluteness seldom to be seen on the features of woman. Her feet had never trod the deck of a steamboat before, and now, for the first time, her eyes feasted on the sight of ocean. Listlessly, and as if enwraped in spirituality, she gazed on the surging waves. They were crested by the silvery moonlight, each frolicksomely chasing the other, and collectively presenting the appearance of a steel-clad host rushing into battle. Maria was filled with the deepest awe. Words were utterly inadequate to express her emotion. This was that mighty, boundless, fathomless ocean of which she had heard and dreamed so much. It kissed Arabian sands, and sighed its lullaby to a thousand islands, and roared in terror, and lashed the icebergs around the pole! Often and often, in earlier years, had her fancy covered its surface with armed genii in their tiny skins, and with birds of sparkling plumage; a thousand hymning echoes from a thousand sources enchanted the ear. Now all things were trooping fantastically; now they vanished in a twinkling. Peris weaving hair and song and coral; old Neptune careering in the plenitude of power; great serpents snapping their tails: whales swallowing and vomiting Jonahs; these, and many more, were the themes of legend and story which thrilled her nature with wonder and delight! Oh, not as then did her soul now drink from the fountains of pleasing, alluring anticipation and fairy nonsense! Pennyless, forsaken, friendless, in the undulating world; an ardent and a confiding heart already scorched by the living embers of despair, Maria had a part to play in the unknown future, which the genius of a conqueror could not execute or comprehend. A man is brave and bold because he is armed and strong; but where is the man who can or ever did surmount the difficulties and trials which beset the pathway of an unprotected female, whose bark is launched on the precarious tide of a sensual, selfish, scoffing, devilish world? Not all the heroes of all the Greeks and Romans subdued a foe so terrible, as mankind to woman! I have said she was pennyless. When the steward of the boat dingled his bell, giving notice for “all who had not paid their passage to walk up and settle,” she sent word to the Captain requesting an interview. Shortly he came, when, in a most affecting manner, she expressed her inability to pay her fare, and implored his generosity to allow her to pass without charge. He assented, conducted her to a state room, and told her to take courage and sleep without sadness. Generous man! thought she, some of nature’s noblemen are yet living; and with gratitude and prayer she undressed and went to bed. Sleep soon came to her eyelids, for she was weary. But scarcely had sleep veiled the memory, before a portly, well dressed man, stealthily entered the room without a light, took off his clothes and crawled into the same bed! She waked not until his arms were firmly clasped around her form. Then she uttered a scream, but amid the tremendous noise of the boat’s machinery and the dash of the waters, that cry was drowned. She struggled furiously to get away from his grasp, but failed. Then he put his lips to her ear and whispered, “A free passage; you are without money, and I have an abundance; be quiet, and all shall go well with you.” Her brain was confused; her mouth was dum. She felt that her hour had come. He accomplished his purpose, and remained with her through that long, bewildering night.[6]