“Madam,” said the captain, “any lady as is escaping from those devils has the freedom of this boat, and no ticket required, as long as I’m in command.  Isn’t that so?” he asked of the crowd.

The murmur broke into an open chorus of enthusiastic speech.

Wild and deep as was her panting anger against Smith’s oppression, Susannah shrank.  The thought of profiting by this spirit of partisan hatred scorched her heart.

The Kentucky Governor, a dapper man, who had been regarding her with a temperate and critical eye, now, urged by her obvious distressed timidity, came forward.

“How did you get among the Mormons, may I ask?”

“My husband,” faltered Susannah, “but he is dead.”

It would appear that her words tallied with some conclusion he had been drawing concerning her, for without further parley Susannah found herself being led in a formal manner down the companion-way.  The brief report which she had given of herself had preceded her through the boat.  She heard the passengers whom she left on the deck making sentimental remarks.  Two coloured girls who were washing dishes in a pantry came to its door and gasped with emotion as they stared at her.  In the saloon the coloured waiters gaped.

At the farther end of the saloon a stout and magnificent lady in silk and diamonds was seated before innumerable viands which were spread in circles around her plate.  She stopped eating while her husband presented Susannah.  She alone of all upon the boat seemed to be overburdened by no surge of sentiment or curiosity.  She was a most comfortable person.

Seated in safety beside her, Susannah could indulge the pent-up indignation of her outraged spirit in silent musings upon Smith’s degradation and, the certain downfall of all righteousness under the new tyranny.  And yet—­and yet—­the shock of the last few days, forcibly as it vibrated through all her nature, could not eradicate the sympathy of years—­the memories of Hiram and Kirtland, Haun’s Mill and the desperate winter’s march.  Justice, her old friend, now her inquisitor, said sternly, “It was in these scenes in which some lost life and some reason that these men lost their moral standards.”  But her heart cried, “Now that I am insulted, I cannot forgive.”

The words of the Governor’s wife, cheerful, continuous, and not without diverting sparkle, were an unspeakable rest to Susannah, weary above all things of herself.  Whether because of a strong undercurrent of tactful kindness, or in mere garrulity, the good lady’s talk for some time flowed on concerning all things small, and nothing great, like the lapping of the river against the vessel’s bows.

But at last her companion’s situation grew upon her; she enlarged more than once upon her surprise at Susannah’s advent, and her feelings of extreme relief that she was safely there.

“What a mercy!” she sighed comfortably.  “Such awful people!  Why, I hear that when any child among them is weak or deformed they just murder it.”