Uncle William was half sitting up in his rough bunk, with the tattered gray blankets over him, one hand was clutched on the side of the bed and there was a great horror in his eyes.  “The sea; the sea,” he kept saying, “don’t let me hear it.  It’s their voices.  Listen!  They’re beating at the sides of the ship.  Keep them from me, keep them out!”

He was quiet for a minute, until there came another great rush of the sea against the sides of the ship, and a roar of water against the port.  Then he broke out, almost screaming—­“Henry, brother Henry, keep them back!  Don’t let them drag me down.  I never willed it.  I never wanted it.  Their death is not at my door.  It was necessity.  Henry!  Brother Henry!  Tell them not to drag me below the sea!”

Like that he raved for perhaps an hour and we tried to quiet him.  Cousin Willie had slipped away, I don’t know where.  Cousin Ferdinand was in his bunk with his back turned.

“Do I slip to-night, at all,” he kept growling “or do I not?  Say, mister, do I get any slip at all?”

But no one minded him.

Then daylight came and Uncle fell asleep.  His face looked drawn and gray and the cords stood out on his withered hand, which was clutched against his shirt.

So he slept.  It seemed so strange.  There was no court physician, no bulletins to reassure the world that he was sleeping quietly.

Later in the morning I saw the ship’s doctor and the captain, all in uniform, with gold braid, walking on their inspection round.

“You had some trouble here last night,” I heard the captain say.

“No, nothing,” the doctor answered, “only one of the steerage passengers delirious in the night.”

Later in the morning the storm had gone down and the sea was calm as glass, and Uncle Henry and I got Uncle William up on deck.  Mr. Peters, the steward that I think I spoke about before, got us a steamer chair from the first class that had been thrown away—­quite good except for one leg,—­and Uncle William sat in it with his face away from the sea.  He seemed much shaken and looked gray and tired, but he talked quite quietly and rationally about our going to America, and how we must all work, because work is man’s lot.  He himself, he says, will take up the presidency of Harvard University in New York, and Uncle Henry, who, of course, was our own Grand Admiral and is a sailor, will enter as Admiral of the navy of one of the states, probably, Uncle says, the navy of Missouri, or else that of Colorado.

It was pleasant to hear Uncle William talk in this way, just as quietly and rationally as at Berlin, and with the same grasp of political things.  He only got excited once, and that was when he was telling Uncle Henry that it was his particular wish that Uncle should go to the captain and offer to take over the navigation of the vessel.  Uncle Henry is a splendid sailor, and in all our cruises in the Baltic he used to work out all the navigation of the vessel, except, of course, the arithmetic—­which was beneath him.